Pear Muffins
These Pear Muffins made with fresh ginger and pecans are perfect with your morning coffee or tea. They’re made with honey instead of sugar, making them moist and flavorful.
When it comes to muffins, the classics come to mind right away: banana-nut muffins to use up overripe bananas (a frequent occurrence in my house), and my buttermilk blueberry muffins and blackberry muffins are always classics.
But I also like some more unique muffins, like my cranberry sauce muffins that use up extra cranberry sauce after Thanksgiving, and even Earl Grey muffins for a unique morning treat.
Likewise, most people don’t immediately think of muffins when they think of baking with pears. Pear crisps and crumbles are much more common.
But I’m here today to make the case that these ginger pear muffins should go into your baking repertoire, especially during this time of year when the best pears are in season.
These pear muffins don’t skimp on the ginger:
While most baked goods call for dried ground ginger, these pear muffins call for grating your own fresh ginger.
In my opinion, you just cannot beat the flavor of fresh ginger, especially because it’s a pretty inexpensive ingredient. It sounds strange, but I even put it in chicken sloppy joes!
You’ll need 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger for this pear muffin recipe, so a medium knob of ginger should be plenty once you peel it.
However, if you’re a ginger lover like me, you want want to buy a large knob and then make spicy orange chicken or lentil vegetable curry, too.
If for some reason you cannot locate fresh ginger, and must use dried ground ginger, I recommend using just 1 teaspoon in this recipe.
Choose your nuts for this ginger pear muffin recipe.
Just like with my oven baked apples and pancake ice cream recipes, you have some flexibility on the nuts for this recipe.
While I’ve used pecans in the pear muffin recipe card below, you could substitute walnuts or even almonds in these ginger pear muffins.
For a nut-free recipe, simply omit the nuts. The muffins will still turn out just fine, you may just end up with 1 muffin less, because the volume of the batter will be a little less.
Whatever you choose to do, enjoy one of these muffins alongside a cardamom tea latte for extra coziness.
These are honey muffins!
As you may have guessed by my recipes for everything from honey lemonade to melomakarona cookies, I am unabashedly a honey lover.
Not only am I using honey in place of sugar in the batter (there’s no granulated sugar or brown sugar in the batter at all), but I use even more honey in the glaze for the top of the pear muffins.
As far as which variety of honey to use, I generally use an all-purpose clover honey for these ginger pear muffins.
Taste of Home has a nice article on 9 Types of Honey (and Where to Get Them) to help you choose which honey would be best for your tastes to make this pear muffin recipe.
How can you tell when a Bosc pear is ripe enough for pear muffins?
Keep an eye on your pears when you bring them home. You don’t want pears that are SOFT, because this means they’re actually overripe.
And unlike bananas, we don’t really want overripe fruit for these pear muffins.
Gently press on the pear at the neck near the stem. If there’s a very slight give, your Bosc pear is ripe but not overripe, and ready to use! If the pear is still very firm, give it a few more days to ripen at room temperature.
Pear Muffins
Ingredients
For the Pear Muffins:
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup honey
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup whole milk
- 1 Bosc pear peeled, cored and finely chopped
- ½ cup chopped pecans
For the Honey Glaze:
- ½ cup sifted confectioners sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons whole milk
Instructions
Make the Pear Muffins:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and until well combined.
- In standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream honey, butter and ginger until light and fluffy. Add egg and milk; beat until well combined. Add flour mixture; beat until just combined. Fold in pear and pecans.
- Line 10 muffin cups with paper liners; divide batter evenly between muffin cups. Transfer to oven; bake 18 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of muffins comes out clean. Cool muffins in pan on wire rack 5 minutes. Remove muffins from pan and transfer to wire rack to cool completely before glazing.
Make the Honey Glaze:
- In medium bowl, whisk together sugar, honey and milk. Spoon glaze over muffins.
Notes
- While I’ve used pecans in the pear muffin recipe card below, you could substitute walnuts or even almonds in these ginger pear muffins.
- For a nut-free recipe, simply omit the nuts. The muffins will still turn out just fine, you may just end up with 1 muffin less, because the volume of the batter will be a little less.
