1. Pear Nutmeg Muffins
So, two weeks into living in my new place and I've barely picked up a mixing bowl. Pretty appalling really. I can try and excuse it by saying I've been settling into my new place, finding a temp job, exploring London life. But, I've had so much time in the evenings to bake and I haven't I've just been lazy. Which is kinda what you need sometimes. But anyway.
New place, new blog, new recipe.
Well, new recipe to me anyway.
The blog Pastry Affair is one of my favourite baking blogs out there. She's been at it for years. YEARS. Scrolling through her backlog is one of my favourite things to do. It's so so good. I've made stuff from her site before, but she's American, so sometimes I have to adapt a recipe from her original one, as we can't get some of that stuff here in the UK. For example, this recipe called for applesauce. Americans use applesauce as a spread on toast or in cakes or as a dessert. In the UK we use it as a sauce with roast pork. It's a bit different. So as I trawled the aisles of Tesco looking for applesauce and found two options. Apple sauce with cider vinegar or Apple sauce with sage and cider vinegar. Neither seemed like they would work. I even checked the baby food aisle for pureed apple, but there was nothing. So whilst these muffins don't follow the original recipe (which you can find here) they are still delicious.
Makes 12 muffins
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (200g) self-raising flour
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup (200g) light brown sugar
5 tbsp (70g) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup (60ml) vegetable oil
3 tbsp (45ml) apple juice
1 conference pear, thinly sliced
Method
Preheat oven to 190C
Mix the melted butter, vanilla, sugar, apple juice, oil and eggs in a bowl until smooth and well combined.
Add in your flour a bit at a time, folding it in, and then add your nutmeg and salt.
Distribute the batter between 12 muffin cases.
Add your sliced pear pieces into the top of your batter (as below). If you can slice your pear thin enough you can try and shape them into roses, as I did for a couple (and sort of failed), or just stick them in.
Bake for 18-20 minutes until tops are golden brown and bounce back. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Some roses were more successful than others...
New place means a new oven, which meant that unfortunately I turned my temperature dial just a little too far. While still tasty, my muffins were browner than I'd meant for them to be. Oops.
For my first bake in the new place, these were pretty damn good. Hope you enjoy them!