Plum Chocolate Chip Muffins (Pluffins)

♫ Listening to: Real Slow by Miami Horror & Sarah Chernoff ♫

If you’ve ever had a plum tree or had a friend or family member with a plum tree, then you know that they’re all ripe at once and you get like 57,981 plums all in the same week or two. So, during plum season this year, someone gave me a paper grocery bag ⅔ of the way filled with plums. It was a lot. So, that’s when I decided to invent pluffins. You can use as little as ½ cup or as much as 1 ½ cups of plums in this recipe depending on how many you need to use up.

I would have had some photos of these muffins with cute emoji faces on the sides, but I was preparing for my photoshoot of them, and Macchiato decided to help herself to SIX MUFFINS with chocolate in them!!! Lucky for me, I use 55% chocolate chips and not dark chocolate, so she didn’t have to go to the vet for another $350 vet appointment (like the chocolate cupcake incident of 2018). If you like baked goods with fruit, you might also like my chocolate orange cake, bearberry muffins, and lemony snicket cupcakes.

This recipe makes 11 plum muffins.

Pluffins Ingredients

• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ heaping cup organic or raw sugar*
• ⅓ cup oil (I used sunflower)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
• ⅔ cup nondairy milk (or sub plum puree if you want to use up more plums)
• 1 medium banana, mashed or blended
• 1 cup of plums peeled and finely diced (if you don’t have that many, you can use less)
• ½ cup vegan chocolate chips (optional, but may make fewer muffins if you omit it)

Pluffins Directions

Preheat oven to 425º.

Sift and whisk the dry ingredients together in a bowl: 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, ¾ teaspoon baking soda, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and half a heaping cup of sugar.

Blend or whisk (in a separate bowl from the dry) the wet ingredients: mashed banana, ⅓ cup oil, 1 teaspoon (optional) vanilla, and ⅔ cup nondairy milk. If I have a really lot of plums, I’ll blend the mushy plums with my banana to make a plum puree to use in place of the nondairy milk. You just want a cup of liquid, made up of some amount of banana, plum puree, and/or nondairy milk.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients using a silicone spatula or large spoon. Mix only until you can no longer see dry ingredients.

Add the cup of finely diced plums and the ½ cup of vegan chocolate chips and mix gently just a few times.

Scoop the batter into the cubbies of an oiled muffin pan, filling them all the way if you like your muffins to have overflowing tops like mine.

Bake at 425º for 10 minutes.

Reduce heat to 350º and bake for another 7 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool in the pan.

Carefully use a silicone spatula and remove the puffins from the muffin pan.

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* I use mostly organic ingredients when I cook, but I realize that not everyone has the disposable income to purchase all organic ingredients. Therefore, I only specify organic on the ingredients that really matter - when buying the organic version is the only way to ensure that the item is vegan.