Pear and Blackberry Muffins

So the days are drawing in and the air and light are different. Autumn is on its way. Which, while it means an end to the long days of summer, is still a good thing in itself. New fruits and vegetables to look forward to, along with boots and cosy nights in with scented candles and real fires.

One of the great things about autumn is all the blackberries in the hedgerows. I always freeze some for crumbles and baking, make some into jam and have even got a great new blackberry gin recipe, which I will be posting soon.

This week I had pears in my vegetable box and wanted to make some muffins with them: blackberries seemed an obvious choice to pair them with. No pun intended.

Autumn flavours!

Recipe

Ingredients

100g soft brown sugar

100ml light olive oil

2 eggs

225g SR flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

200g peeled, cored and chopped pears (around 2-3 pears)

75g blackberries

1 tablespoon of natural yogurt (optional)

Method

Set the oven to 180ºC and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Whisk the sugar and oil together and add the eggs.

Fold in the flour and bicarbonate of soda.

Mix in the pears and blackberries but take care not to overwork.

If your pears are very juicy you may not need the natural yogurt, but if you feel the mixture is a little stiff, you can add it.

Bake for around 20 minutes or until they are firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Pear and Blackberry Muffins

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Foraging, Fruit, Fruit picking, Muffins, Recipes

Tags: autumn, baking, blackberries, cake, foraging, fruit, fruit picking, hedgerow, muffins, pears, recipe, seasonal cooking, yogurt