Is it *really* vegan?

This post is about a month or so late and for that I apologise. 

Ms Cupcake's The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town was published last month and I was lucky enough to receive a review copy. 

As soon as I opened it I knew what I was going to make - my favourite from Ms Cupcake - the Bounty cupcake. 

Obviously the recipe meant I had to buy a couple of vegan friendly items - soya margarine and milk. Everything else I had at home. 

Working in a bakery I'm used to creaming for ages to get light fluffy cakes so the method here was completely new to me but everything was well explained and easy to follow! In fact, the cakes were really easy and quick to make. 

Once baked it was time to make the two frostings. I admit here I cheated a little I made one batch, which I then halved. The first half I added coconut extract and shredded coconut too for the bottom layer. The rest I added some cocoa powder, vanilla and a pinch of salt too to make chocolate frosting. 

The title of this post comes from Manny's reaction when I gave him one to test. They were really moist and tasty. And best of all you couldn't tell they were vegan! And I mean that as a compliment! 

And this wasn't the only recipe I plan to make. The book is full of really great looking cakes, cupcakes, tray bakes and savoury treats to make. 

Definitely not just for vegans!! 

Butter v Stork challenge

I was watching Food and Drink last week with Mary Berry and Michel Roux Jr and the question - what makes a better cake, Butter or Stork - came up again. They tasted two cakes made to Mary's recipe one made using butter, the other with Stork and all three testers preferred the taste of the Stork cake.

As well as shocking me, this got me thinking that over the years I've always argued that butter is always better....but is it?

The Butter v Stork baking challenge was conceived.

I'm arranging an event in London (venue to be confirmed) hopefully in March. I'm aiming for a Monday (hopefully evening) so people can bake on the Sunday when they have no work. This is where you can help - we'll need a few bakers to bake cakes as I cannot bake them all myself. No fancy baking is required - just basic good old fashioned cakes - two of each, one with butter, one with Stork. Once we have the bakers decided we can arrange what butter to use (I think it's best we all used the same butter) and what cakes to bake. Obviously we can do cupcakes or cakes - this can all be decided once we have more info.

We will obviously also need some taste testers.

If you are interested please get in touch via email, Twitter (@annecupcake) or leaving a comment below.

And thanks to Helen at Fuss Free Flavours for putting me in touch with people on Twitter who are aiming to help out with venues.

Please get involved so we can finally answer this very important question once and for all.