Harry Eastwood: A Baking Genius

A couple of weeks ago I was at my friend Liz's house.  She's also a keen baker and cook (she even does wedding cakes!) and she had just bought a new cookbook.  Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood.  I was primarily captivated by the book's beauty and utter sweetness, but look beyond this and you see that Eastwood is a GENIUS!  The basic premise is that you remove the butter from the recipe and replace it with grated veggies.  This includes anything from beetroot to courgette to squash.  It's also coeliac friendly as the recipes use rice flour (although this can be swapped with plain flour).  Frankly, I was spoilt for choice.  I didn't know where to begin on what I'm sure will turn out to be a marathon bake-a-thon as I try to get through all these scrummy recipes.

My first attempt has been Orange Squash cupcakes.  That's squash as in butternut.  And boy, are they good!  The grated butternut squash vanishes when it's cooked and my Guinea Pigs (not real ones obviously!) had no idea what they were eating!  It tastes like full-fat-made-with-butter-cake! I tried to be a bit arty and decorate the tops to look like an orange, but I wasn't really successful.  I'll have to keep trying...