The Baking Medic

Pear + White Chocolate = Delicious Muffins

It’s the Easter break here in St Andrews and most students are off cavorting away somewhere on the Continent. Alas, for medics, the 2 week break finds us at home or still in the Bubble looking longingly outside as we get our first days of spring.  Such is the lot of people who have midterms the first day back from the “break”.

But I still found some time to make these muffins.  A few months back, I made a Glazed Pear & White Chocolate Bundt cake.  I loved the combination of pear and white chocolate, two soft sweet complementary flavours.  So this past weekend, I was running low on a few ingredients and was looking for a recipe to use up a couple of pears that I had sitting around.  See I was butter-less, which pretty much rules out 75% of cake and cookie recipes.  So I decided to go looking for a muffin recipe and I found a great basic buttermilk muffin recipe.  The recipe originally called for berries, but I substituted the same volume of chopped up pear and white chocolate chips.

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Almost halfway through Week 2, my studies are definitely well underway… and I’m already well behind on notes! ;_; But nothing says procrastination productive distraction like baking and I’ve already brought in treats for my classmates a few times! :) This cake is from my Golden Book of Chocolate, one of the most amazing chocolate cookbooks every published.  I was surprised and impressed by its comprehensive introduction, packed full of information about the history of chocolate, it’s production, and it’s role in the economic world of today.  The language is a bit grandiose, but it was informative nonetheless.

However, what really sets this book apart is the variety and quantity of recipes.  There are over 300 of them! And every single recipe is accompanied by a mouthwatering, foodgasm inducing photo.  It’s a pleasure simply to sit down with a cup of tea and slowly leaf through it’s golden pages. » Read the rest of this entry «