Have your cake and eat it

You don't get a waistline like mine through not eating cake, so imagine my glee when an old school friend recommended a recipe book which had virtually fat free cakes. Well as I have learnt, you don't get something for nothing in this life now do you - so what was the catch? Vegetables thats what. So needless to say I was more than slightly skeptical but intrigued enough to want to experiment.

With Mother's Day on the horizon, I put in a subtle request and low and behold the book miraculously appeared on my bed. So what is this incredible book?


Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood (1/4 of the Channel 4 Cook Yourself Thin team).






The book itself is truly beautiful, if a little gooey and girly, however the layout and photographs are clear and attractive. The author is a self confessed cake lover and believes that cake should be part of everyday life.

Her theory is that by replacing the butter with a combination of ground almonds (for natural fat content and texture) and by adding vegetables (for moisture and light fluffiness) no taste compromise will occur. This is a truly remarkable claim to live up to and a challenge i decided to take head on. (well it would be rude not to!)

My first trial had to be a chocolate cake, after all I needed the kids to be on board. So I set about grating the 250g of carrots required! (This could also be a great form of exercise and I could end up with one very large bulging bicep)

The recipe and method can be found in the Every Bunny Loves a Birthday and the quantities made 12 generous sized cupcakes, which I promptly smothered in chocolate butter icing , in case they tasted awful. Nervously, I drew back the paper case and peered at its contents, fully expecting to see a series of orange flecks, instantly recognisable to the discerning eye of a fully trained veg phobic (or child under 7), but nothing. No, nothing, no hint of a vegetable, no orange tint.

But what about taste? They couldn't possibly taste ok, could they? There would surely be a bit of an earthy taste and textural differences. Well, it has to be said I was truly astonished, but only speechless because I had soft moist chocolate cake stuffed in my mouth. These cakes were in fact some of the best cupcakes I'd made in ages.

Ok, so I could no accept that this recipe was fine and in fact grudgingly might say good, but we've all heard of carrot cake, so no news here, nothing to see. Lets move on to courgettes, after all that's just insane surely, they are green for a start, and no-one's going to eat green cake, are they? (not unless truly desperate).American Vanilla Cupcakes - well they sound fairly normal don't they - that is apart from the 300g of finely grated courgette it asks you to whisk in!

All I could think of was how on earth was I going to get this past the trainee mealtime micro-surgeons that regularly frequent my dining table. Its green, oh so green and the mixture's stringy and slimy!

In a vague attempt to hide the greenness I decided that pale green glace icing was the solution (that was bound to fool them).

However, after baking I was pleasantly surprised at the shade, they looked fairly normal with just a pale green hue, which I wasn't sure if I was imagining just because I knew the content. On close scrutiny I could see very tiny green flecks, barely visible to the human eye. (Note to self at this point to peel the courgette more carefully next time).

I ran these past the resident household quality control and they passed the test, in fact to quote one QA technician (age 5) 'you can't even taste the green bits with this lovely icing'. Obviously my eye sight is failing.

Recipe trial number three was a Victoria Sponge containing potato - sounds very strange and my immediate preconceptions were that it would have a very starchy flavour and would stick unpalatable to the roof of your mouth. So 200g of King Edwards later and I have a whisked sponge cake, with stringy potato evenly distributed through it. 20 minutes later and the results are in a seemingly perfect sponge! After filling with jam and butter cream and decorating with candles, it was served up as a 6th Birthday cake, with fingers crossed behind my back.

Luckily it was brilliant, moist and tasty, no signs of extra starch flavour.

So if you can get past the vomit inducing style in which this book has been written, to the recipes at the core you can encounter its true brilliance, an inspired book with real purpose and recipes that work.

I have yet to trial recipes containing ; butternut squash, parsnips, sweet potato and beetroot but will keep you updated with my findings..