Things have been a bit topsy-turvy at our house since the holidays. My daughter picked up a few bad habits when we were traveling and right after—it’s rough when your routines are all a jumble and it’s easy to relax the rules a bit. She’s been munching a lot more between meals, demanding snacks at all different times of the day and then wandering around the house with them because I haven’t asked her to sit at her table and eat.
But I want to change all that. I really think we are too frivolous with food in American culture, and I would much prefer to emulate the French in their routine of le gôuter: one sit-down snack between lunch and dinner to tide a child over between meals.
The way we have D’s routines structured now (on a good day), she eats breakfast between 6 and 7am, lunch around 11am before her nap, and dinner around 6pm, so le gôuter at around 3pm is a perfect mini-meal.
This week, we hosted two of her little friends and their moms for a play date that started right around snack time, so I wanted to provide something healthy and fun. One of her little friends has dairy and egg allergies, so she is effectively vegan when it comes to baked goods. Her other little friend is a picky eater—but he gobbled down my low-sugar carrot cupcakes (served without frosting, as muffins) on a previous visit, so I thought muffins were a pretty safe bet.
This recipe is very easily adaptable to any fruit or spices you like or have on hand. Substitute 1–2 cups of diced fruit or berries for the pears, and any spices you like for the cinnamon and ginger. You can also choose to omit the ginger if you have a particularly sensitive child eater.
However you choose to mix these up, they are still delicious.
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1 ½ cups soy milk
- ½ cup canola oil
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 pears, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400° and line a muffin tin with paper or silicone cups.
- Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the wet. Stir until just combined. Then fold in the chopped pear and pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with a few raw rolled oats if desired.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, let cool completely, and enjoy.
how much ginger for this recipe?
Hi Maryruth! I used a teaspoon.
In the oven as we speak : We added 3 TBSP of hemp seeds to up the protein, smells amazingly nutty while baking. Thanks for a great simple recipe. 🙂
Okay! DELICIOUS!!!!
Great idea! Glad you like them!
I was looking for a ginger pear muffin recipe as I lost one I had used before. I was a bit skeptical about the sugar level but thought I would test the recipe as written. This was a big error as the muffin tasted like bread, as there was no discernible sweetness other than the pear. I know there are individuals that don’t like super sweet bake goods & neither do I. However, this recipe should come with a warning or disclaimer about the sugar level. I tried to eat one of the muffins but did not feel comfortable serving them so they had to be discarded. What a waste of ingredients so baker beware if you want something resembling a traditional muffin the sugar will need to be increased. I might suggest 1 -1 1/4 cup of sugar also I might use a combination of organic cane juice sugar& brown sugar. I’m sorry to be negative as I really appreciate this bloggers post.