These Easy Honey Pear Muffins are the perfect breakfast or snack for Fall! Pears are overflowing at the grocery store this time of year, and these moist, fluffy muffins incorporate about 3 of them with cinnamon and a sweet and crunchy streusel on top for the perfect Fall bake.
These pear and cinnamon muffins are a great way to use up some overripe pears you have on hand, too! So buy a few extra pears and keep this recipe on hand for a quick and delicious treat.
This recipe is sponsored by my favorite honey company, Local Hive™! They bottle local batches of only the best raw and unfiltered honey across the US, and they donate a portion of their proceeds to PACE (Pollinator Awareness Through Conservation and Education) to help protect the bees.
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Why You'll Love This Recipe
- This pear breakfast recipe is great to make ahead so you can wake up to delicious muffins!
- These muffins are made without any granulated sugar! There's brown sugar in the crumb topping, but the muffins themselves are sweetened purely with local honey!
- It's as scrumptious as my popular Cinnamon Streusel Muffins recipe, but with the addition of my favorite fall fruit!
- These easy pear muffins come together in about 30 minutes and will make your whole house smell like warm Fall flavors.
- The brown sugar cinnamon streusel makes it extra tasty and texturized.
Ingredients
- Ripe pears are washed, peeled, and mashed to add both flavor and moisture to these muffins. The best pears for baking will be really fragrant and soft when you press gently on the side.
- Local Hive™ Nor Cal Raw & Unfiltered Honey is used to sweeten the muffin batter. It's bottled from local Californian bees, giving it a unique flavor that pairs deliciously with pears.
- This recipe for pear muffins uses both baking soda and baking powder. This ensures great rise of your muffins, keeping them light and fluffy.
- Buttermilk is a key ingredient to activate the the baking soda and add a slight tang to balance out the sweetness.
See recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Substitutions & Variations
- If you can't find pears, you can swap out 1.5 cups of unsweetened chunky applesauce.
- Add some crunch by mixing in ½ cup chopped, toasted walnuts to the batter in Step 4.
- Try incorporating old fashioned oats to the streusel in Step 1 for some additional texture and flavor.
- Ginger pear is a classic flavor combination. Turn these into ginger pear muffins by adding ¼ teaspoon of ground ginger to the batter with the cinnamon.
This recipe has not been tested with other substitutions or variations. If you replace or add any ingredients, please let us know how it turned out in the comments below!
How To Make Honey Pear Muffins
Step 1: Make the cinnamon streusel topping. In a small bowl, mix together all purpose flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted, unsalted butter until it resembles wet sand. Set aside to dry.
Step 2: Wash and peel your pears, and remove the core, stem, and seeds. In a medium bowl, mash the pears and measure out 1½ cups of pulp, leaving any excess liquid behind.
Step 3: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together honey, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract, egg, and mashed pears.
Step 4: Stir flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the wet ingredients.
Step 5: Place 12 parchment cup liners into a regular muffin pan and fill each one to the top with the muffin batter.
Step 6: Sprinkle streusel over the top of each muffin.
Bake at 400°F for 5 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 13-15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out of the center of the muffins clean. Transfer to a cooling rack in the muffin tin for 10 minutes, then transfer muffins to the rack to cool completely.
Expert Baking Tips
- Oftentimes, grocery stores will put pears on sale if they are either underripe or overripe. Go ahead and buy them in either case for this pear muffin recipe. If they are overripe, it will be easy to mash them. And if they are underripe, place them in a brown paper bag on the counter next to your bananas, and they will ripen quickly!
- Preheat oven before you start mixing your muffin batter. Preheating to 400F can take some time depending on your oven, and you want to bake the batter quickly after mixing all of the ingredients together.
- Use a food scale to weigh your flour in grams (see metric tab in recipe card below). Flour often gets packed into measuring cups so too much is added to the batter, and this yields dry, dense muffins. Using a scale ensures accurate measurements!
- Baking the pear muffins on the middle rack and rotating them halfway through will help your honey pear muffins bake more evenly. I also recommend keeping an oven thermometer inside to make sure it's at the correct temperature!
Recipe FAQs
You'll know when a pear is ripe when you can smell it when you walk by. You can also press gently on the side. If it is slightly soft, then the pear is ripe.
Any pears that are ripe and soft will work well for this recipe. I like to use Bartlett pears or whatever is on sale. You can also use canned pears if you can't find fresh pears at the grocery store.
Sure! I would recommend swapping out ¼ - ½ of the all purpose flour for whole wheat flour so the muffins don't become too dense.
Local Hive™ is an American honey company devoted to protecting and preserving the lives of bees. They work with 250+ beekeepers across the United States to bottle locally sourced varietals of raw and unfiltered honey. Each varietal of honey has a unique color and flavor profile due to the local differences in bees and what they pollinate in specific areas. I find the Nor Cal varietal to be perfect in this pear muffin recipe because of its smooth, fruity notes! Learn more about Local Hive™ at localhivehoney.com.
You can find different varietals in many grocery stores across the US, or purchase all varietals at shop.localhivehoney.com! As an affiliate, I'm happy to offer you 15% off of your first purchase with the code BOB15 (valid through December 31, 2022).
Storage
Room Temperature
Let the honey pear muffins cool completely, then place them in an airtight container and store for up to 3 days.
Freezing Instructions
Wrap cooled muffins in plastic wrap and place in a freezer bag for up to 2 months. Bring to room temperature on the counter for at least an hour before serving.
More Recipes You'll Love
Did you try this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ review below and tag @brokenovenbaking & @localhivehoney on Instagram!
📖 Recipe
Easy Honey Pear Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel
Equipment
- Muffin pan and liners
- Measuring spoons
- Mixing bowls
- Whisk
- Spatula
- Wire cooling rack
Ingredients
Cinnamon Streusel Topping
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup brown sugar light or dark, packed
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
Honey Pear Muffins
- ½ cup Local Hive™ Nor Cal Raw and Unfiltered Honey
- ¼ cup vegetable oil or other neutral oil
- ⅓ cup buttermilk room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 1½ cups ripe pears (about 3 pears) washed, peeled, mashed, and then measured
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour weighed in grams or spooned and leveled
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F and fill a muffin pan with 12 parchment liners.
Cinnamon Streusel Topping
- In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Mix in the melted butter until it resembles wet sand. Set aside.
Pear Muffins
- In a large bowl, whisk together the honey, oil, buttermilk, vanilla extract, egg, and mashed pears.
- Gently fold the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into the wet ingredients just until the flour streaks disappear.
- Distribute the pear muffin batter into the muffin liners (they should be about full). Sprinkle the streusel on top of the batter, then lightly pat down on each top to secure the crumb topping.
- Bake on the middle oven rack at 400°F for 5 minutes, then (without opening the oven door) lower the temperature to 350°F and continue to bake until a toothpick comes out clean (about 13-15 more minutes; 18-20 minutes total).
- Let the honey pear muffins sit in the pan until they're cool enough to transfer to a wire rack.
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