White choc and raspberry blondies (the only butter in them is butternut squash)

I've tried a number of recipes from the super incredible Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache cookbook which specialises in vegetable cakes: parsnip vanilla fudge, chocolate aubergine cake and two sorts of butternut squash cupcakes- one flavoured with orange and the other with ginger. All have gone down swimmingly well with adults and kids alike. No one can believe they are butter free and packed with veggies.  Oh, and gluten free too!!

There has only been one not great recipe - an orange, almond and saffron sand cake. It was very, very gritty.

But today's blondies (think squidgy brownie texture but no blonde, not dark!) were out of this world. I am not even going to try to share them with my kids! They are mine, all mine. Think a blondie, mated with bakewell tart, with a heady whiff of cinnamon.

I know, I couldn't quite get my head round them and nearly left out the cinnamon - it's not a natural bedfellow with raspberries and white chocolate. But please, just trust it!

The recipe is Harry Eastwood's but I have upped the chocolate and flaked almonds, and slightly downed the raspberries as round here they come in punnets of 125g.

Preheat oven to 180C (fan).
Line and lightly grease a 22cm square brownie tin.

3 medium eggs
120g caster sugar
250g peeled, finely grated butternut squash, no seeds!!
50g rice flour
100g ground almonds
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
150g white chocolate chopped into chunks.
125g punnet of fresh raspberries
40g flaked almonds


Whisk the sugar and eggs until quadrupled in volume and pale. Add in the finely grated squash, flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Whisk briefly to combine. Pour 2/3 of the mixture into the tin. Sprinkle over the white chocolate and raspberries. Pour the rest of the batter over, push down any raspberries and choc chunks so they are submerged and don't burn. Sprinkle ove rthe flaked almonds.

Bake for 25 mins until risen and golden brown. Keep an eye on it to make sure the nuts don't burn.

Cool in the tin for about 15 mins before cutting into 16. Delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream!

Butternut Orange Cupcakes

OK, OK, you've been wheedling me for the recipe. So I'm sharing it in my own words.

But I need you to be clear it comes, unadulterated, from Harry Eastwood's superb book Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache. So try it. Love it. And then go straight out and buy the book! She has put a LOT of work into developing it.

These are gluten free. And butter and dairy free too if you change the butter icing for a water icing (icing sugar made into a paste with the orange juice).

Makes 12 regular size muffins

Cupcake mix

2 medium eggs
160 g caster sugar
200g butternut squash
2 tsp baking powder
100g rice flour (NOT ground rice)
100g ground almonds
1/4 tsp salt
juice and zest of 1 orange

Icing
200g icing (confectioners) sugar
75g soft unsalted butter
juice and zest of 1 orange

Preheat oven to 180C. Fill a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Using an electric whisk, beat the eggs and sugar together for 5 mins until light, creamy and quadrupled in size.

Peel the butternut squash, this uses about one third of an average size one. Remove the stringy bits and the seeds. Then start grating. By hand. Do not use a food processor. Use the finest holes on your normal box grater or Cuisipro grater. This will take some time! Do not do it in advance or it will dry out, and you need the moisture.

Add to the egg mix, along with the other ingredients. Using a spatula stir until fully incorporated.

Spoon into the paper cases and cook for 20 mins. They are ready when risen and golden. Check after 15 mins.

Leave to cool fully before icing. At least 30 mins in a cool place.

Make the icing by whisking the butter and sugar with an electric whisk. Add all the zest, and as much juice as you can, without making it too runny. Ice and enjoy!

Vegetable Cupcakes

Eating the warm, orange scented cupcake marked a milestone. A bizarre claim for a  humble cupcake. But this was no ordinary cupcake. No ma'am, it was my portal to a new world. The world of vegetable cakes!

So I have finally moved from admiring this year's favourite Christmas present, Harry Eastwood's Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache, a book full of gluten free, low fat, vegetable based cakes (see my review here) --to actually making them! That's one giant leap for womankind!

I have found it hard to get my head around them. You see, I have a weird phobia... There's lots of things that I love to eat but won't cook: chicken liver pate, seaweed dishes, and the latest addition to this list: cakes made from parsnip, turnip and aubergine. Because if I knew what was in there, then my head and taste buds would be doing battle.

And so I took a risk. Butternut based orange cup cakes. Sounds weird, right?

Grating the butternut was the downside, 20 mins hard graft on my lousy box grater (she advises doing it by hand, not in a food processor). The mix looked odd going into the cases. But coming out was fragrant and golden. Pure orange cake, nothing dodgy.

These got a universal thumbs up from assorted mamas and fussy kiddies from 2-8 year olds. No one guessed their secret. And with no butter, only two eggs and no wheat flour were nutritionally far superior to our normal cupcake recipe. Want the recipe? Then here it is!

My neighbour was so impressed, we're going to bake something together from the book next week- so we can share the grating!