Caramelized Pear Muffins
Ingredients
o 5-6 pears, cored and chopped
o 4 tbsp butter
o ¼ cup sugar
o 2 eggs
o ½ cup olive oil
o ¼ cup honey
o ¼ cup yogurt
o 1 tsp vanilla
o 1 ¼ cup flour
o ½ cup cornmeal
o 2 tsp baking powder
o ½ tsp salt
o ¼ tsp cinnamon
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 375º and prepare a muffin tin.
2. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat then stir in the sugar. Add in the chopped pears and cook stirring occasionally for 15-20 minutes until the pears are caramelized. Remove the skillet from the heat and let the pears cool for 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, olive oil, honey, yogurt, and vanilla. Fold in the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
4. Stir in most of the caramelized pears into the muffin batter, leaving some to garnish on top. Evenly distribute the batter into the prepared muffin tin (usually ~12 muffins). Dollop the leftover caramelized pears on top of each muffin and be sure to scrape up the glaze at the bottom of the skillet.
5. Bake for 24 minutes or until desired doneness.
I think pears are up there for most undervalued and underutilized fruit. It’s probably because most of the times you eat pears, they aren’t ripe and are therefore hard and flavorless. However, a ripe pear on its own is incredibly delicious and melts in your mouth. For some reason I associate pears with fall (along the lines of apples, but not to the same degree, of course), so I wanted to make muffins with them, adding in some cornmeal and cinnamon to emphasize the fall flavor.