Plum Streusel Muffins

We’ve been glamping. I’m a rather reluctant camper (much to the rest of the family’s dismay) – it can be lovely if the weather’s good and granted, you do ‘get away from it all’. But we live in the UK, so, quite often the weather isn’t perfect and to be honest I find it all rather hard work! Maybe it’s because we don’t have all the kit – all we have are airbeds, the tent, sleeping bags and a single ring gas burner. No luxury seats for us, no table, no heater. My main problem is the cooking – we can’t easily just eat in a local pub, well, we can manage a meal or two but there’s only so many ‘something and chips’ meals you can consume without a sense of doom. As you can imagine, we normally cook for ourselves on holiday but catering for 1omnivore, one vegetarian and 2 with various food allergies on a 1 ring gas burner isn’t easy! (With me, the vegetarian being the annoyingly difficult one). How do you cope with food when camping? I’d be interested to hear your tips and failsafe camping meals.

Anyway, this time we made a compromise and went glamping. Here’s our rather attractive bell tent with rugs, duvets, wood burner stove inside, barbecue outside and a camp fire! It was a thoroughly lovely experience, the weather was perfect for it and it was so unlike normal life that it felt like a real break. BUT, 2 nights was definitely enough for me!

The site was handily on a stunning fruit farm in Herefordshire so we did plenty of picking our own – perfect late strawberries and some wonderful fragrant opal plums (I bought back so many they’ll be a few more recipes to come!) but my first recipe is these rather delightful fruity, crunchy topped and spiced plum streusel muffins. Bookmark this one for autumn when plums are everywhere.

Plum Streusel Muffins (dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, can be soya-free, sesame-free, vegetarian and vegan)

For the streusel topping:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3 tbsp cold dairy-free spread

For the muffins:

• 1 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 3/4 cup dairy-free yogurt
• 3/4 cup dairy-free milk, I use Oatly
• 1/3 cup sunflower oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 plums, chopped

– Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade/Gas mark 6
– Line a muffin pan with paper liners
– Rub the cold spread into the flour, sugar and cinnamon until it resembles a crumble topping. Set aside.
– Sift the flour, bicarbonate and cinnamon into a bowl
– Stir in the plum pieces so they are covered in flour (this will prevent them sinking to the bottom)
– Stir in the sugar
– Whisk together the yogurt, non- dairy milk, oil and vanilla.
– Pour into a well in the centre of the flour mix and gently combine so its just combined, but no lumps of raw flour remain
– 2/3rds fill each liner and sprinkle over the streusel topping
– Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden and a knife comes out clean.
– Cool on a wire rack.