Spiced Pear Muffins #MuffinMonday

These spiced pear muffins are light, fluffy and full of fall flavors. The aroma as they bake is wonderful and will make your whole house smell fabulous. 

If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you know that the last Monday of every month is Muffin Monday. I get together with a group of bakers and we share muffin recipes. 

This month, I brought these to the vet clinic that helps Lone Star Boxer Rescue and our partners Austin Boxer Rescue with our pups as a thank you for their service all year round. I also brought some homemade peanut brittle. We love them and couldn’t rescue the dogs we do without their help, so I wanted to bring them an extra special Christmas treat! 

Spiced Pear Muffins

If you don’t have sugar crystals or demerara sugar for the cinnamon sugar topping, you can substitute regular sugar. This recipe is adapted from one on A Baking Journey.

Ingredients

1 medium pear

1 2/3 cup or 200g flour

1/3 cup or 70g brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup or 120ml canola or other light oil

1/2 cup or 120g Greek yogurt

Cinnamon sugar topping (optional, but highly recommended)

1 1/2 tablespoons demerara sugar or sugar crystals

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Line your 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners or grease the pan well with oil.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. 

Peel, core and cut the pear into small pieces. If you cut them too large, they tend to sink to the bottom of the muffin batter. 

Add the pears pieces to the flour mixture and stir to coat. 

In another mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, canola and yogurt until smooth.

 

Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture.

Fold until just combined. 

Divide the muffin batter between the cups in your prepared muffin pan. 

For the cinnamon sugar topping, if using, mix together the sugar and ground cinnamon in a small bowl. 

Sprinkle some of it over each muffin.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until puffed and golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.  Place the muffins on a cooling rack. 

Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Enjoy! 

As I mentioned above, it's Muffin Monday, the very last one of 2022! Many thanks to my fellow bakers. Please check out the recipes we are sharing below.

• Ham and Cheddar Corn Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Peppermint Mocha Muffins from Magical Ingredients
• Sourdough Hot Cocoa Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen
• Spiced Pear Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these Spiced Pear Muffins!

 .

2-Minute Quick Fudge

This rich, nutty 2-Minute Quick Fudge is so easy that children can make it all by themselves. Even better, its main ingredients are store cupboard and refrigerator staples: powdered sugar, cocoa powder, butter and milk. 

It’s perfect for slumber parties, unexpected midnight munchies and, especially important this time of year, it makes a great gift for neighbors and friends. Who doesn't like fudge?!

I miss the days when my daughters still lived at home and we’d have a fairly steady stream of overnight guests and sleepovers on the weekends. I was in my absolute element cooking and baking for a crowd. 

One of our favorite sleepover meals was homemade pizza. I’d make the dough and pizza sauce and set out all of the toppings. Each girl would get a ball of dough to spread out on a pan and top her own custom made pizza. It took awhile to make and bake them all so the pizza was both entertainment for part of the evening, and dinner. 

As they got older, I’d head off to my room to read after we ate, knowing that they were quite capable of baking up a pan of brownies and more on their own, if the munchies hit. The muted giggles and games and music from downstairs were joy to me. 

I originally created this recipe post for a sleepover theme blog event so I was determined to find a quick fudge recipe that children could make on their own with simple ingredients. No condensed milk or marshmallow fluff since a lot of folks don’t keep those in the cupboard. I didn’t want the stove involved either. Flames and unsupervised children should never mix. Unfortunately, most quick fudge recipes call for one or both those things. 

Until I found this one in my archives. I’d love to give credit where it’s due, but the source wasn’t in my notes. It did say that nuts were optional. I had scratched through Nuts to write Pecans. Because pecans are my favorite nut. And I added the mini M&Ms. 

The bottom line is, you can eat the base quick fudge all on its own. It’s perfectly chocolate-y and rich. Or you can add in whatever you like. Chopped candy bars, mint chips, peanut butter chips, mini marshmallows, other nuts? They’d all be excellent. 

2-Minute Quick Fudge

Technically, this does take just a bit longer than two minutes because you have to chop the pecans and measure all of your other ingredients out. It’s still super quick and worth it!  

Ingredients

1 lb or 450g powdered sugar

1/2 cup or 40g unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/4 cup or 60ml milk

1/2 cup or 113g butter 

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/2 cup or 57g chopped pecans, plus more for decoration, if desired

1/2 cup or 100g mini M&Ms, plus more for decoration, if desired

Method

Grease an 8 x 8 in or 20 x 20cm pan or line it with baking parchment across the bottom and up at least two opposing sides, so that the fudge can be lifted out of the pan by those ends. 

In a large microwavable mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, cocoa and salt in mixing bowl. 

Add milk and butter. Do not mix. 

Cook uncovered in a microwave oven on high for 2 minutes. Remove bowl from microwave and stir well to mix the ingredients into a lovely thick chocolate.

Add the vanilla, pecans and mini M&Ms.  Stir until blended. 

Pour or spoon the fudge into your prepared pan. 

Press it out evenly in the pan. 

Sprinkle on the extra mini M&Ms and pecans, if using. Press them down with a spoon so they stick into the fudge. 

If your kitchen is warm, you can put the pan in the freezer for 20 minutes to cool and set. My quartz countertop is cold this time of year so mine set up quickly without chilling. 

Cut into small squares with a sharp knife and serve. Store in an airtight container. 

Tip: If you are giving this fudge away as a gift, cut a piece of thick cardboard into a square. Cover it in foil and stack the pieces of fudge on top. Cover with cling film, ribbon optional. Voilà – a pretty gift package! 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes for holiday sweets and treats. Check out all the links below. Many thanks to our host, Wendy of A Day in the Life on a Farm and her able stand-in, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Christmas Tree Peanut Butter Blossoms from Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• German Chocolate Caramel Bars from Palatable Pastime
• Homemade Jujube Jelly Sweets from Sneha’s Recipe
• Maritozzi from Culinary Cam
• Two-minute Quick Fudge from Food Lust People Love
• Vegan Air Fryer Churros from Cook with Renu

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin this 2-Minute Quick Fudge!

 .