Pecan Pear Muffins

The second week of January and the cold has deepened into the proper Vermont variety — the kind where you check the thermometer before you go outside not because it changes whether you go but because you want to know what you're dealing with. Fourteen below on Thursday morning. The car protested. The barn was fine; the barn has been fine for thirty-seven winters with adequate wood in the walls.

I've been making bread every weekend for a year now, and I've reached the point where I don't think about it anymore. My hands know the dough. Helen would have said something dry about the length of time it took me to learn what she'd always known, and she would have been right. But here I am, learning things at sixty-seven that I should have learned at thirty-five, and it turns out learning is available at any age if you're paying attention.

Carol came for dinner again — a Sunday routine we've been building, one of us driving to the other. She brought a bottle of wine and we talked about our mother, which is something we haven't done much in years. Our mother died when Carol was forty and I was forty-three, so we've had a quarter-century to process it, but there are still things that come up. Carol said: I never realized how much of my cooking I learned from watching Mom without knowing I was learning. I said: I think that's how most of it works.

My birthday is next week. I've been sixty-eight before — any birthday that isn't a round number passes without the existential freight — but there's something about this particular year that makes me more aware of the counting. You notice where you are differently when you've spent a year at close quarters with your own life.

The bread goes in on Sunday mornings, but some weeks — especially in January, especially at fourteen below — I want something I can have with coffee while it’s still dark outside, something that fills the kitchen with the smell of warm spice before Carol arrives or before I’ve said a word to anyone. These pecan pear muffins have become that thing. They’re close enough to bread to satisfy whatever it is I’m after, and the pear keeps them from being fussy — just ripe fruit and good nuts and a little cinnamon, which is about as honest as baking gets.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 22 min | Total Time: 37 min | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh pear, peeled and diced (about 2 medium pears)
3/4 cup chopped pecans, divided

Instructions

Preheat. Heat oven to 375°F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line with paper liners.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg until combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix.
Fold in fruit and nuts. Gently fold in the diced pear and 1/2 cup of the pecans.
Fill cups. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Scatter the remaining pecans over the tops.
Bake. Bake 20–22 minutes, until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool. Let muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pecan Pear Muffins — What My Hands Know Now