Pear + White Chocolate = Delicious Muffins

It’s the Easter break here in St Andrews and most students are off cavorting away somewhere on the Continent. Alas, for medics, the 2 week break finds us at home or still in the Bubble looking longingly outside as we get our first days of spring.  Such is the lot of people who have midterms the first day back from the “break”.

But I still found some time to make these muffins.  A few months back, I made a Glazed Pear & White Chocolate Bundt cake.  I loved the combination of pear and white chocolate, two soft sweet complementary flavours.  So this past weekend, I was running low on a few ingredients and was looking for a recipe to use up a couple of pears that I had sitting around.  See I was butter-less, which pretty much rules out 75% of cake and cookie recipes.  So I decided to go looking for a muffin recipe and I found a great basic buttermilk muffin recipe.  The recipe originally called for berries, but I substituted the same volume of chopped up pear and white chocolate chips.

These muffins were amazing! I just love the flavours of pear and white chocolate together.  The muffins were also very moist and tender, even after a few days.  They weren’t dry or tough — the hallmark of bad, overmixed muffins. And the best part is that since everyone is away… well let’s just say my flatmate and I definitely enjoyed our fair share of the muffins. :)

I’ve got a few variations planned for this muffin recipe, so stay tuned for those.  Also, don’t be afraid to experiment yourself! As long as you keep the base recipe the same, you can pretty much add anything you like, from raisins, to chocolate chips, to fresh fruit…. mmmm.

So without further ado, Pear & White Chocolate Chip muffins!

Moist and tender. Perhaps the only time when I think "muffin top" is amazing.

Pear & White Chocolate Chip Muffins

adapted from Joyofbaking.com

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups (325g) plain (all purpose)  flour
• 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup butter milk (180ml) –> (3/4 cup milk + 2 tsp lemon juice, let stand for a few minutes before using)
• 2/3 cup (160mL) vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups (500mL) anything (I used 1 cup fresh pear, 1 cup white chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F/190C. Position rack in centre of the oven. Place 12 muffins cups in the tin and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl whisk together the egg, buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract.
3. In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Gently fold in the fresh pear and white chocolate (other extras).
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients inside.  With a rubber spatula, gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir only until the ingredients are just combined.  15-20 turns of the spatula should be enough and stop after that! Otherwise you will have tough dry nasty muffins instead of moist delicious ones.
5. Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups (I found mine were quite full. Just make sure you grease the top of the muffin pan as well so the muffin tops don’t stick). Place on middle rack in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool about 5 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely.

Stay tuned for more tasty variations. :)