Eggless apple cake

The recipe for this cake was eggless, and would have been dairy free, but instead of using coconut milk (which I didn't have) I used regular milk.  I also filled it with cream which is not specifically dairy free... the recipe book recommended some branded dairy free whip stuff which really didn't sound very nice at all.  The recipe for the cake made three layers in the tins that I had, but given the depth it would have looked out of proportion and been very difficult to cut.  The cake was very appley, nice and spicey and I had sprinkled some granulated brown sugar on the top which made it reminiscent of the country slices made by a certain Mr K which we used to have on train journeys when I was little.

Of course there were cupcakes!

I made the red velvet chocolate cupcakes that I made for my godmother's 40th wedding anniversary (these look like milk chocolate on the photos and have the small marbled chocolate squares on the top, as previously they are iced with a cream cheese icing.  The dark chocolate cupcakes are a really interesting vegan recipe from my lovely new cake book.  The recipe had no eggs or butter, but instead used vegetable oil (which, just like making carrot cake still freaks me out to pour into a bowl in quantity in a way that I just never feel when putting in half a pound of good hard fat...), and cherry balsamic vinegar.  This was a new venture for me and they came out very well - they also pleased those of my friends who were dairy intolerant too!  These were both large muffin-sized cupcakes which also rose quite amazingly and so appeared to have the general huge-ness of the sort of pre-wrapped muffins you sometimes find in shops which was bizarre.