Dan Lepard goes vegan - fig mocha muffins

You've got to hand it to Dan Lepard. He's not normally shy of using eggs and dairy, but a while back, he used his baking column in The Guardian to make some vegan goodies. 

And not only did he dip his toe in vegan baking, he published articles on it for a month, and did it without the usual 'hey, I love butter, but if you're one of those stupid hippy freaks that doesn't, this one's for you...' style of writing that occasionally dogs non-vegans cooks doing a spot of vegan cooking. (For US readers unware of Dan Lepard, he's the dude that would have taken the gold home at last year's Olympics if there was a medal for baking.)

The one recipe that caught my eye most out of his month of vegan recipes was this one: mocha fig muffins.

The first thing I really like about this recipe is that it's so easy to make - I managed to fix up the batter in about 10 minutes or so. The second thing I really like about it was that it tasted really, really good!

The batter's a mix of figs, oil, flour, sugar and flavourings like coffee and cocoa (I left out the almonds as Mr Flicking the Vs is pathologically averse to them), the wet ingredients are blended, then the dry added then it all goes into muffin tins while you wait and wish the oven would hurry up. 

25 minutes later, this is what you get:

The crumb is perfect and the muffins were so moist. And, given the figs are by far the biggest ingredient in the muffin, I reckon you'd look the other way if I counted it as one of my five a day! (Oh alright, more like three of my five a day...)

Dan Lepard, when you want to go vegan, you do it with style.  Next stop, Mr Lepard's chocolate passion cake and walnut black cherry cookies...