I sent along a pear in my husband’s lunch the other day and lo and behold I came across it BACK in the fruit bowl at the end of the day looking much worse for the wear but still intact. I gave it a wash, along with another pear from the fruit bowl and an  apple, peeled ’em, chopped ’em up and made Muffins. You can bet he will now eat that pear!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Preheat oven to 400F.
Line 10 muffin cups with paper liners.*

2 cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1/3 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon

2 Pears, washed, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped
1 Apples, washed, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

1 large Egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup Milk
1/2 Vegetable Oil
1 Tablespoon grated Ginger
1 teaspoon  Vanilla

Streusel Topping
1/4 cup Flour
2 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
2 Tablespoons Butter
1 cup chopped Walnuts

In small mixing bowl prepare the Streusel Topping:
Combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon.
Cut in butter using a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Stir in chopped walnuts; set aside.

In large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cinnamon.
Stir in the chopped fruit to coat with flour.
Make a well in the centre and set aside.

In small mixing combine egg, milk (or soy milk) vegetable oil (or a combination of vegetable oil and melted butter), vanilla and grated ginger.

Pour liquid ingredients all at once into the well in the centre of the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. The batter will be lumpy.

Using a 5 ounce scoop fill each of the paper lined muffin cups.
Top with Streusel Topping.
Fill each of unused muffin cups with a few tablespoons of water.

Bake in preheated 400F oven for 10 minutes, rotate pans and continue baking for another 10 minutes or until golden brown and pick inserted in centre comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool on racks for 10 minutes.
Carefully pour water out of unused muffin cups then turn muffins out to cool completely on wire racks.

* I like my muffins a lil bigger so fill them to the top of the paper liners. You can make a dozen smaller muffins, if you prefer.
** I often double this recipe.