Cinnamon Pear Muffins

If you're thinking about staging a Muffin Intervention for me right about now due to the inordinate number of muffin posts on this blog, well.......

.....you might be on to something.

We pretty much perpetually have a batch of muffins on hand around here. Muffins rock my breakfast world. I believe "muffintastic" should be a complimentary adjective, as in "Muffintastic pants, bro!" And frankly, I'm especially proud of these particular muffins because I came up with the recipe myself and they were quite tasty. (I'm only just learning to be adventurous in the recipe creation department.)  

The other thing I like about this recipe is that it gives the often-overlooked pear the limelight (or the pearlight? too many fruits in this sentence) with the more frequently chosen apple. In the world of baked goods, the pear is like the slightly-less-pretty-but-makes-up-for-it-with-spunk younger sister to the attractive, popular apple, a la Little Women or A League of Their Own. Apple strudel, apple bread, apple pie--yes, they're all delicious, but the pear deserves a chance, people! It's easily as sweet as an apple, and sometimes juicier. When baked, I find its graininess softens to the perfect texture. So do yourself a favor and use it in a muffin....like this one.

Cinnamon Pear Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. maple or agave syrup

1 egg

1/3 c. oil

1/2 c. applesauce

1/3 c. almond milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 large pear, peeled, cored, and finely chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a small bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix brown sugar, maple syrup, egg, oil, applesauce, almond milk, and vanilla. Slowly mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just combined. Fold in pears.

Bake for 18-20 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.