Muffinks

Well, I heard a call for Pear-Hazelnut muffins over here, so I'm pleased to bring you the recipe. The professor and his brother like "muffinks" and sometimes have them for "brekky." Our families all have their own languages, they teach you this in Grad School linguistics seminars, and the professor's family words have become mine. Imagine our surprise when we were in Australia a few years ago and discovered THIS! A whole nation with our word in use! ... but I digress.

I based my muffins on Mollie Katzen's pear ginger muffins in her book, Sunlight Cafe. Then I went wild and changed things and the recipe seems to work anyway. Good book, by the way. Here's the muffink recipe. It lacks metric measurements, but if you could look past that? It's good!!
Pear Hazelnut Muffins

Makes 12 pretty big muffinks

Preheat your oven to 375. Oil a standard muffin pan (one with 12 muffins) or just use muffin cups instead.

Combine the following, in no particular order. Believe me, it's not too sensitive, this recipe!

-2 finely chopped ripe pears, equaling about 1.5 to 2 cups pear. (use the peel for added fiber, or use canned pear if that's what's convenient. It's flex.)

-1 tablespoon lemon juice, put that on the pears chunks right away so they don't turn brown.

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1.5 teaspoons baking soda

-1/2 cup sugar

-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-1/4 to 1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts (amount is flexible)

-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon, or Penzey's mixed baking spices if you have it (optional)

-1 cup milk (I used whole milk, but you can use buttermilk, yogurt, cream, soymilk, whatever, it all works)

-1 large egg

-1/2 cup olive oil (I suspect that 4 tablespoons melted butter, or 1/2 cup of veggie oil would also work fine)

Mix it all together so there are no big floury parts. Fill up each muffin cup until it is practically full.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until it's brown and a toothpick stuck into the middle of a muffink comes out clean. Remove muffins from the pan and let cool on a rack. Use restraint. Try not to eat too many of these muffinks at once. ----

Sadly, we got a new scale yesterday and I discovered I weigh several pounds more than before. Or as Harry says, "Don't look at me! It's embarrassing!" So, I am now on the limited muffins, walk up and down the staircase more often diet.

I have concluded, in part, that knitting while I was sick did not use up enough calories, so I am back to spinning again now that I'm better AND I move both arms and legs while doing it! Here's the pair of socks I whipped up while travelling. (Information on yarn in a previous post.) They are destined for someone who thought the colors were pretty, and who has smaller feet than I do, so I am not modelling..and no, it's not my feet that gained weight.

Thanks so much for all the fun comments you've left lately, (booby, hahaha, thanks for the laughs) and your kind words, Cheryl, it came at a very good time. Some days one needs an extra dose of nice, and it appears that for me, my pear hazelnut muffin consumption is now limited, so I'll have to depend on good comments!