It’s a few years old now and some of the pages are rippled from stray drips or smeared with chocolate finger marks, but one of my favourite cookbooks remains Deb Perlman’s Smitten Kitchen (US version / UK version). I’ve made her Plum and Poppy Seed Muffins before, but they were such a hit, I thought I’d make them again so I could share some photos and the recipe with you here.
What I love about these is how moist they are; they contain about just as much fruit as actual batter. She’s also cut down on the sugar a bit and used wholemeal flour for part of the dry ingredients. All of this, in my opinion, makes them perfectly acceptable for breakfast! They also contain browned butter which is maybe less acceptable for breakfast, but adds an amazing nutty flavour, and the poppy seeds add a bit of texture. All around a pretty awesome muffin.
Ingredients:
- 85g unsalted butter, melted, browned and cooled
- 1 large egg
- 50g granulated sugar
- 50g brown sugar
- 180g soured cream
- 60g wholemeal flour
- 125g plain flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Good pinch of ground cinnamon
- Good pinch of nutmeg (she suggests freshly grated, but I used ground)
- 2 tbsp poppy seeds
- 340g plums, pitted and diced (I peeled mine, but Deb puts hers in with skin)
Preheat your oven to 190 C / 375 F.
Prepare your ingredients. If you’re going to peel the plums, do that now.
Also, brown your butter. This means heating it on a low-med temperature and watching it carefully, scraping the pan as you wait. It will melt, then foam, then clarify and then start to smell nutty and turn brown. Deb warns there’s only about a minute between the perfect browned butter and a burnt mess, so stay put. You’ll want this to cool before you use it. I popped mine in the fridge while I prepared the batter.
In a large bowl, whisk both sugars with your egg.
Stir in melted butter. Add soured cream.
In another bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients: both flours, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and poppy seeds.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and combine, but only just, so they’re still a bit lumpy. The photo below needed a few more stirs, but not, just till the flour was blended in.
Fold the plums in gently, until they are pretty equally distributed.
This makes 12 muffins, but I’ve made them in larger muffin tins before, so it made only 6. This time, I went for the full 12. If you’re using tin liners, no need for greasing, but if not, lightly coat your tin with butter. I used these fun tulip cases. Spoon an equal amount into each.
Pop in the oven for 15-18 minutes (a few more if you’re only splitting into 6 bigger muffins). Check after 15 minutes with a skewer. When it comes out clean, they’re ready!
Leave them to cool for a few minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. You can add extra plum slices to the top for decoration if you like…
And enjoy.
Deb’s blog of the same name is equally fabulous, but if you love to bake, I’m sure you’ve been following her for years already. Here’s another recipe of hers from the book that I love.
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