Plums love spice and these vegan plum gingerbread muffins have their own robust gingerbread spice mix which includes a little fennel, caraway and coriander.
The recipe uses 100% wholemeal flour, and contains 300 g of fresh plums and 40 g of walnuts, which, alongside all those spices, make these muffins a good source of a range of nutrients and high in both soluble and insoluble fibre.
Wholesome as they are, they’re still sweet and have a texture like light sticky gingerbread. That’s to say, these do not belong to the super-worthy class of muffins that are both high-fibre and sugar-free, but they do taste great and have a lot going for them nutritionally.
Plum butter (which is basically a condensed form of plum jam using less sugar) makes these extra plummy. Our local supermarket sells a Polish brand called Lowicz, which is good. It would be fine to substitute plum jam, though, and reduce the brown sugar a little as a fruit butter is much less sweet than a jam.
The texture improves and becomes stickier if you leave them to cool completely before eating.
plum gingerbread muffins
ingredients
- 300 g fresh plums (weight with stones removed)
- 50 g plum butter
- 300 g wholemeal plain flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 3 tsp mixed spice (see custom blend below or use your favourite blend)
- 170 g light muscovado sugar
- 40 g walnuts
- 90 ml light olive (or other mild-flavoured) oil
- 170 ml oat (or other non-dairy) milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
spice mix
- 1/8 tsp each of ground fennel, coriander seed, caraway and cloves
- 1/2 tsp each of ground allspice, nutmeg and ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
method
- Set the oven to 190°C/380°F and line a twelve-hole muffin tin with cases.
- Cut the plums into large chunks (I cut each in two and then cross cut each half into four chunks).
- Add the plum butter to the plums and stir so that all the plums are covered. Set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and spice into a large bowl and stir through the sugar.
- Finely chop the walnuts and add these to the flour mixture.
- In a small jug or bowl, whisk the oat milk, oil and vanilla extract together.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid. Stir until very roughly combined, before tipping in the jammy fruit. Continue stirring until evenly combined, but don’t over stir.
- Transfer the mixture to the cases. It will fill them more or less to the top.
- Bake for around 20 to 22 minutes, until they have risen up, have a rich golden top and are quite firm to the touch.
- Allow to cool completely before eating for best results.
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