Ginger Pear Muffins and Announcing AFAM March

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

Much as I hated having this as the nursery rhyme that best described me, I have now come to terms with it. There is nothing that comes close to describing the mischievous, short tempered child that I was (and continue to be). I was the baby of the house, the youngest grandchild on both sides of the family. My tantrum throwing, my stomping out of the room, and everything associated with that is still remembered by every member of my family. And they will probably never let me forget it.

I was born with very sensitive skin and there were (and are) very few things that actually agreed with me. So, my parents thought it best to stick to only those things, expensive as they may be, rather than deal with the allergic reactions. So, I even had a special soap. When I was a little older, I fought with Amma about that as well. Why did everyone in the house get to use that nice green soap when I had to use that brown soap? She tried to explain to me that it was special, but I would have none of that. So, I started using the green soap only to quickly revert to the “one and only” for me.

What is this boring story doing on my food blog? Why is it part of the post that is meant to announce the fruit of the month?

It is only because the two have something in common. The soap that I have been using ever since “the great revert” is proud to be the fruit of the month: Pears!

A Fruit A Month is an event started by Maheswari of Beyond the Usual. This is my first time hosting any event and I am grateful to Maheswari for this opportunity.

You can join the party as long as you follow these simple rules:

1. Prepare any kind of dish with Pears of any kind and post the recipe on your blog in the month of March.
2. Add a link back to this event announcement (feel free to use this logo):

3. Please send me an e-mail at onlineraga@gmail.com with the following info.

• Subject Line: AFAM
• Your name
• Your blog name
• A picture of the dish if you have one.
  

4. Non bloggers can e-mail me the recipe and the picture and I will include it in the round up.
5. Deadline is April 1, 2008 and the round up will be posted in the first week of April.

I am so excited about this event. I’m kickstarting it with my favourite kind of baked goodie: the humble muffin. I found this recipe a long time ago and I don’t recollect where I found it. The word document where I’ve saved it has a footnote that says, “Source: Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Café”. I bought crystallized ginger to make these, but have been munching on them everyday since the day I brought the packet home.

Ginger-Pear Muffins

1 cup Pears, peeled and finely chopped
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
2 cups Flour
½ tsp Salt
1 ½ tsp Baking Powder
1/3 to ½ cup Sugar
1 tbsp Lemon zest, grated
1/3 cup Crystallized Ginger, very finely minced
1 cup Buttermilk
1 Egg
2 tsp Fresh Ginger, ground
1 tsp Vanilla
4 tbsp Unsalted Butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Prepare the muffin pans by lining them with paper muffin cases.

Place the chopped pear in a shallow dish, drizzle with lemon juice, and set aside.

Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, and lemon zest in a medium sized bowl. Stir in the minced crystallized ginger.

Blend the buttermilk with the egg, fresh ginger, and vanilla, and beat gently with a fork or a small whisk until smooth.

Slowly pour this mixture, along with the melted butter, into the dry ingredients. Add the pear as well. Using a spoon or rubber spatula, stir from the bottom of the bowl until the dry ingredients are all moistened.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven, then remove the muffins from the pan and place them on a rack to cool.

I also baked some plain vanilla cupcakes to take along for a picnic yesterday. We took about 50 kids from an NGO on a Delhi Metro ride and showed them the Red Fort. I followed my Golden Glow cake recipe and baked them in mufifn cases for 15 minutes at 375ºF. After 10 minutes of baking, I planted some Cadbury's Gems on top. They cracked during baking and some chocolate oozed out. I thought that was a bad thing until I realized that the chocolate added to the overall appeal. The kids loved them and more than the kids, the adults from my office demanded another batch. Meeta's monthly mingle had the theme of "Drop in & Decorate" some time ago. While I didn't participate then, I am glad I made 50 underprivileged kids happy yesterday.