Sticky Pear and Ginger Muffins

If i can find any excuse to cook with Ginger i will, and this seemed like the perfect excuse. I have seen  lots of people have made ginger and pear muffins but i thought that a little sticky toffee sauce and a few tweaks could only make it more delicious! 

For your muffins you will need:

320g Golden caster sugar

320g Self Raising Flour

320g Butter

100g sour cream

3 eggs 

thumb sized peice of fresh ginger

4 small pears

1/2 tsp of Cinammon

For the Toffee Sauce:

100g Muscavado sugar

150ml Double cream

1. Cream together your eggs and sugar and slowly add your flour, eggs and sour cream to the mixture until dropping consistency ( it drops off your spoon). If  your mixture is too heavy add a little milk until you get the right consistency.

2. Now grate in your fresh ginger and mix this in with your 1/2 tsp of cinammon. Now you are ready to fill your muffin cases. Fill your cases half full as you need room to add your pear!

3. Cut your pear peices into thumb sized shapes. You can cut them however you like but i have cut mine to have a point at the top so it looks like the top of the pear. Once cut place them in the centre of your mixture pushing them down slightly.

4. Place these into a pre-heated oven of 170°  for 20-25 minutes and leave to cool for 30 minutes. In the meantime you can make your toffee sauce.

5. Place your muscavado sugar and cream into a heavy based saucepan on a medium heat to melt the sugar into the cream. Depending how gingery you would like your muffins to be, you could put another piece of ginger into your cream and sugar mixture, to infuse it with the ginger's flavour and remove once the sauce is ready. 

6. Finally prick your muffins a few times on top and pour over your toffee sauce. By pricking holes in your muffins you are allowing the sauce to seep into the sponge making it even more sticky. Do not worry about being neat they look better if they are drowned in sauce. For the purposes of my picture i used pears with stalks but i would encourage you to make your muffins without to save your teeth the trouble!

I hope you like this latest addition to my blog i would love to hear from anyone who has given this recipe a go. Happy Baking!