In the Bag: Pear & Lemon Muffins

Julia over at A Slice of Cherry Pie is running this month’s In the Bag competition, which challenges us cooks and food bloggers to cook and eat more seasonal food. The ingredients for January are pears, lemon and nuts. For example, Julia has created a pear, smoked cheddar and walnut salad, while at new food blog A Forkful of Spaghetti we are treated to pear and hazelnut brioche toasts.

I decided to put my baking hat on and make some muffins, flavoured with pear, lemon zest and almond. I’m very pleased with how they turned out, especially considering that I was adapting a recipe and I wasn’t sure it would work. They were light and fluffy, with yummy crispy bits on top, and the combination of flavours went together very well. The only thing I would do differently is possibly to tone down the lemon. It tasted great but it did overshadow the pear. I used zest of one lemon; I would say zest of between half and one lemon would be perfect.

Ingredients

All measurements are metric, so 1 cup is equivalent to 250ml.

First bowl: 1 large pear, peeled, cored and diced
Zest of 1/2 to 1 lemon
1 tablespoon almond flour
24 blanched almonds, sliced in half
1 egg
100g vegetable oil
1 cup milk

Second bowl: 2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Grease a 12-cake muffin tin with butter. Mix together the contents of the first bowl, then slowly add the flour and sugar, stirring as you go. When the batter is thoroughly mixed, spoon into the muffin tin, aiming for an even quantity of batter, pear and almonds in each one. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until golden-brown.