Today I have made my first attempt at vegan cupcakes, or fairy buns as I want to call them.  Fairy buns because I have made them mini, although they look deceptively larger in the photos – they are in fact made in petit four cases.

I have a good friend whose little girl turns 5 next week, and tomorrow she goes to a wonderful school in a small wood, set up by her mom. Sadly my friend is really unwell at the moment and asked if I could make cupcakes for her to take to school with her.

Why am I making vegan ones? Well, a couple of the children have vegan diets so I needed to make something for them – and I decided it would be a lot easier to make them all vegan cupcakes.  So here I am baking a pumpkin spice version following this recipe.

We still have lots of pumpkin puree left so that decided the flavour – plus it’s October and nearly Hallow’een so pumpkins are everywhere.  The house has smelt gorgeous all morning with wafts of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg floating from the kitchen.

They taste surprisingly good – which sounds rather rude, me suggesting that because they are vegan they wouldn’t.  But I am a lover of butter and eggs and for me these are natural ingredients that for many generations people have been baking with.

Whilst I probably wouldn’t bake vegan cupcakes out of choice, I am pleased to have had a go and see that they can turn out pretty much the same as your standard cupcake.  I have also made a vegan cream cheese frosting to ice them with – vegan cream cheese is one ingredient I really won’t be swapping to, it’s not for me.