Caramelized Pear Gingerbread Muffins #MuffinMonday

With buttery pears and aromatic rich ginger batter, these caramelized pear gingerbread muffins make a lovely breakfast or snack for the holiday season. 

After some soul searching and then consulting with the other members of my Muffin Monday baking group, this post will be my last official Muffin Monday one. That doesn’t mean that I won’t occasionally share a muffin recipe though. I love creating and baking them far too much to give it up entirely. 

I had to go back and count the Muffin Mondays I’ve shared a post for from way back in June of 2012, for a total of 264 muffin recipes! (One a week for three years then one a month since 2015.) Not to mention the links on my posts to fellow bakers’ recipes. It’s a treasure trove of options! See them all here.

But since this is the last official post, I decided that something out of the ordinary was warranted. Something rich and decadent, yet easy to achieve. And definitely a muffin that fit the season. No partridge but a pear and gingerbread! 

Caramelized Pear Gingerbread Muffins

If you don’t have a suitable pear, these would be lovely with an apple caramelized and added in the same manner. 

Ingredients

For the caramelized pear:

1 ripe but firm pear

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon brown sugar

For the muffin batter:

2 1/4 cups or 280g flour

1/2 cup or 100g sugar

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup or 120g butter, melted and cooled

1/2 cup or 120ml molasses or treacle

1/4 cup or 60ml milk

 

Method

Peel, core and cut your pear into thick slices.

In a nonstick skillet over a medium high heat, brown the pears in the butter, turning them over in the pan to color both sides. 

Add in the brown sugar and cook for a few minutes, until the sugar melts and bubbles and coats the pear. 

Remove from the heat and leave to cool. 

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing with butter or non-stick spray or lining it with paper muffin cups.

 

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Cut the caramelized pear into pieces and set aside 12 pieces for topping. Mix the bigger pile into the flour and toss gently to coat. 

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, butter, molasses and milk.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.  Top each with a piece of the reserved pear.

Bake in your preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  

Cool in the pan for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s time for Muffin Monday. I am so grateful to my fellow bakers for sticking with me all these years. Please check out the links below and go show them some love!

• Banana Buttermilk Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Blueberry Streusel Muffins from A Messy Kitchen
• Caramelized Pear Gingerbread Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Cardamom Cinnamon Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cassava Flour Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Maple French Toast Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Wheaties Muffins from Palatable Pastime

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who have gotten together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page. 

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Spicy Baked Artichoke Dip

This spicy baked artichoke dip is creamy, cheesy and delicious but oh, so easy to make! It can be prepared ahead and baked when you are ready to serve. 

It was four days before Christmas. As I finished checking out at my local grocery store, the self-check employee wished me a merry Christmas. I returned the good wishes and then laughed, saying, I’m sure I’ll be back before then! 

I was, in fact, there at least two more times. And my daughter was there once. We have lists! We plan ahead! And, yet, multiple trips to the store seem to be unavoidable somehow. Tell me it’s not just me, please. 

With the goal of not having to go out again for a while, I challenged my fellow Sunday FunDay bloggers to share appetizer recipes that can be made with the store cupboard and/or refrigerator/freezer items they usually have on hand. I’m thinking for New Year’s Eve but, truly, any party would do. 

Spicy Baked Artichoke Dip

This recipe calls for mayonnaise. DO NOT substitute Miracle Whip or salad cream – they are too sweet. 

Ingredients

1 cup or 240g mayonnaise 

1 1/2 cups or about 190g finely grated Parmesan

1 can (14oz or 400g) quartered artichoke hearts, drained weight 8 1/2oz or 240g

1 small hot red chili pepper

Optional additions: Sometimes we like to add crabmeat, cooked shrimp or crispy bacon before baking the dip to bubbling richness. 

To serve: crackers or toasted baguette slices

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. 

Lay the drained artichoke quarters out on folded paper towels so they can dry while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. 

Mince the chili pepper. 

Measure the mayonnaise and Parmesan into a mixing bowl. 

Chop the artichokes roughly, discarding any tough pieces of the outer leaves. 

Add them into the mixing bowl along with the chili pepper and mix all the ingredients together.

Spoon the dip into the baking pan. 

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes for a smaller, deep ovenproof dish. Or for a little less time in a bigger, shallow pan. The dip should be golden on the top and bubbling hot. 

Serve the dip with crackers or sliced baguette. Leftovers are great in a baked potato or piled on toasted baguette slices and warmed in an oven. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today, as I mentioned above, we are sharing appetizer recipes made with ingredients we usually have on hand (and hope you will too!) Check out the links below. 

• Baked Sweet Potato from Sneha's Recipe
• Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Celery from Palatable Pastime
• Go-to Queso Dip from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Jalapeño Popper Dip from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Savory Chevre Truffles from Culinary Cam
• Spicy Baked Artichoke Dip from Food Lust People Love
• Tomato and Boursin Bruschetta from Karen's Kitchen Stories

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Gingerbread Cookie Bars

These gingerbread cookie bars are an easy way to enjoy delicious gingerbread cookies without all the faff of rolling and cutting. Decorate with royal icing to finish. 

When my girls were younger, seasonal Christmas baking always included sugar cookies of various colors and designs and gingerbread men with royal icing features and M&M baking bit buttons. 

We loved baking and decorating them almost as much as eating our creations. Also, fancy cookies make great gifts for friends and neighbors. Who doesn’t like to get a small plate of festive Christmas cookies?

I must confess that I’ve gotten lazy now though. I rarely make any cookies that require rolling out and cutting, then re-rolling the scraps and cutting again. Even when I make sugar cookies, I make a sausage out of the dough so I can just slice and bake. 

The dough for these gingerbread cookie bars isn’t stiff enough to do that though, so I just bake them and cut them apart. Still so easy! 

Gingerbread Cookie Bars

For the molasses, use unsulphured, as in the ingredient list, NOT black strap which is very strongly flavored and will overwhelm the spices. I use Grandma’s brand. This recipe was adapted from one on Sally’s Baking Addiction. The royal icing ingredients make way more than you need to decorate these cookie bars but the balance can be kept indefinitely in the freezer.

Ingredients for 24 cookie bars

For the cookie bars:

2 1/4 cups or 281g flour

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup or 170g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/2 cup, packed, or 100g dark brown sugar

1/2 cup or 100g sugar

1/3 cup or 80ml (113g) unsulphured molasses

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the royal icing:

1 1/4 cups or 156g powdered sugar 

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

pinch fine sea salt

1 large egg white (about 40g)

Important: Uncooked egg whites should not be served to anyone with a compromised immune system, unless those whites are from pasteurized eggs. Substitute an equivalent combination of powdered egg whites and water, according to the package instructions.

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a 9x13 in or 23x33cm pan by lining it with baking parchment. I dab a little butter or oil in each corner and in the middle to help anchor the paper to the pan. This keeps it from sliding around as much. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk to combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg and salt. 

In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, sugar, egg, molasses and vanilla together until no lumps remain. 

Sift the flour mixture into the butter mixture folding as you go. 

Spoon the dough to the prepared baking pan. 

Use a spatula to spread and press it into a smooth, even layer. 

Bake for 23–26 minutes or until the top is set but still looks quite soft. There shouldn’t be any jiggle but do err on the side of under-baking. The bars puff up in the oven, but will deflate and firm up as they cool. 

Leave to cool on a wire rack in the pan for about 10 minutes then using side of the baking parchment, slide the baking parchment with bars on top from the baking pan to the wire rack.

Leave to cool for another 10-15 minutes, then slide the baking parchment with bars to a cutting board and cut into squares.

Gently separate the squares and leave to cool. 

Meanwhile, make the royal icing. Sift the powdered sugar, cream of tartar and pinch of salt into a mixing bowl. Add in the egg white.

 Whisk it in a little at a time from the middle, until all is incorporated.

When the cookie bars are completely cool, spoon some of the icing into your piping bag fitted with a #3 tip. 

Decorate as desired, letting some drip off the sides of the gingerbread bars. I like to do diagonal lines across the top. If you don’t have a piping bag and tip, use a Ziploc bag with a tiny corner cut off. 

Leave to set. 

The royal icing will harden up then the bars can be stored in an airtight container or packaged up to share with friends and family. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes on our holiday cookie platters in celebration of National Cookie Exchange Day which falls next Monday, 22 December. Many thanks to our host, Camilla of Culinary Cam. Check out the links below. 

• A Panoply of Pistachio Cookies by Culinary Cam
• Bakery-Style Holiday Sprinkle Cookies by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Citrusy Ginger Shortbread Cookies by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Egg Free Peanut Butter M&M Cookies by Mayuri's Jikoni
• Eggless Piped Chocolate Cookie by Sneha's Recipe
• Fruitcake Cookies by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Gingerbread Cookie Bars by Food Lust People Love
• Vegan Ginger Cookies by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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