Creamy Goats Cheese and Pear Cupcakes with Toasted Walnut Icing

This recipe completely caught me by surprise! Here I am with this beautiful piece of Mediterranean Delicacies' Dutch Goats milk cheese and all I want to do is just eat it in its original form. I do a lot of cooking with soft goats cheese, but never have I even tasted a hard goats cheese - and how delicious! Sweet and creamy, like a sweet Gouda. I knew I wanted to somehow combine this cheese with pears, and when I read about savoury cupcakes the other day, this immediately came to me and I just had to try it. Of course this was very risky, because if the result was to be terrible, I would have wasted this beautiful block of cheese! BUT...it turned out absolutely fantastic!

• 250g butter
• 250g castor sugar
• 4 eggs
• 60ml milk
• 500ml grated Mediterranean Delicacies Dutch Goats cheese
• 1t salt
• 250g self raising flour
• 125ml cream
• 1 tin pears in syrup
• 230g cream cheese
• 160g butter
• 600g icing sugar
• 100g walnuts
• 1T caramel sugar

Method: 

1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. In a mixer cream the sugar and butter 1 by 1
3. add the eggs and continue mixing
4. add milk and grated cheese,
5. then salt now while the mixer is still running slowly
6. add the sieved flour till mixed
7. scoop out into cupcake holders that are stuck into cupcake or muffin tins
8. do not fill by more than 2/3
9. bake for 25 minutes

For the creamy pear filling:

1. liquidize the pairs and syrup
2. reduce in a hot pan till you get to a thick consistency (like baby food) and let it cool down
3. whip the cream and fold the pear reduction into the whipped cream with the back of a wooden spoon or your finger
4. push a hole in the middle of the cupcake (about a third of the cupcake size)
5. Fill a piping bag with the pear cream mixture and pipe into the holes

For the icing:

1. On a baking tray or in a pan add the walnuts and sprinkle with the sugar.
2. Roast or panfry until sugar caramelizes onto the walnuts, then let cool down
3. Use the blade attachment on your food processor to cream butter and cream cheese.
4. Sieve the icing sugar and slowly add to the butter and cream cheese mix as well as the salt.
5. Now add the walnuts while food processor is still running until you get a smooth icing with fine crumbs of walnuts.
6. Use a piping bag to decorate your cupcakes and enjoy!