Hello everyone!

I've been asked to do a cake for a shower-wedding-reception all in one kind of party our church is doing for a young couple later this month. The bride is vegan (I'm not sure about the groom). I've done a recipe search here on CC and found a white and chocolate version. I've read some posts telling me what to watch out for in the icing ingredients.

Due to my son's food allergies, I actually have the items on hand to do a small test run (soy milk, etc.). This is good news. My question for all of you out there is do you have any experiences with this type cake that could help me avoid disaster?

I was asked to do the cake earlier in the week but no one mentioned the fact that the bride was vegan. I asked her last night if there was any particular flavor or color she and the groom preferred. She was very sweet about it and just said plain white would be fine. I thought she was just being nice and not wanting me to go to any trouble (which she was) and offered to make any number of flavors since it's no big deal to add chocolate, etc. to a scratch cake! She quietly said that since she is vegan she didn't intend to eat any cake but thought it would be nice for the guests to have dessert as expected. At this, I responded that we could make something she could enjoy, too. After all, it is their wedding! She lit up and made it worthwhile before I ever plugged in the KA!

Thanks so much for any tidbits of knowledge you may have to offer!

DD is also vegan and I'm always looking for good vegan baked goods recipes. When I search the vegan cake recipes here on CC, I can read the ingredients, but the amounts are little boxes. Anyone have the entire recipe?

What size cake pans are you planning to use? Vegan cake recipies in my opinion make for great cupcakes. Maybe you can do a cc tower with a small cutting cake w/topper on top?

It has been my experience that vegan cakes do not rise as much as others and the larger the pan the worse it is.

Duncan Hines has cake mixes that have no milk in them (Devils Food and Classic Yellow I believe, check label) if you add about 10oz. of soda (nothing else) to these box mixes they come out great and are vegan. Use clear soda for vanilla mix and dark soda for chocolate mix, but you can use a strawberry or other flavored soda too to change up the flavors.

Here is my scratch recipe:

Vegan Chocolate Cake:
1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups water


Makes 1 8-9 inch round or 12 cupcakes
Bake at 350 degrees

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together oil, vinegar, vanilla, and water until well combined. Add flour mixture to the mixer and mix until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Batter should look and feel more watery than normal cake batters.

Check after 25 minutes, rotate pand and continue cooking until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Maybe putting a heating core in the center will help it rise more? I haven't tried it. I really am not a fan of scratch vegan white cakes, they always seem grainy more like a muffin consistency.



Sorry so long, HTH.

Thanks! I've copied and saved that recipe. But why don't the ingredient amounts show up in the CC recipe? I've also noticed the muffin like texture of the vegan cakes I've tried so far. I'm a scratch baker, but I might bend my rules for the DH mix for this one.

Thanks so much for everyone's help! This is going to be a first, to say the least!

From my experience with soymilk substitution & egg-less recipes for our son, I anticipated that there may be very little rise to the vegan cakes. I'm hoping to compensate by slapping this thing on the tall tier stand with decor on top of each layer.

The last headcount was 150 guests. A few days ago it was 50-75 guests. So, seeing as how the total has doubled in less than a week, I'm planning on making this sucker big from the beginning!

The last cake I made for church 50 people were anticipated for the shower. I'm paranoid and made the cake to feed 75 generous servings. I started cutting little Wilton slices when I did a quick headcount as everyone sat down and got to 75 while folks were still walking in the door! Having a good turnout is great problem to have, so I'm not complaining!

I use flower nails for anything 12" and larger. I figure it can't hurt!

I'm sure you have already thought of this but it wasnt clear from what you have already posted... you dont need to make the entire cake vegan! I did my first wedding cake for a friend who has gluten allergies. They did not want to keep the top tier (yucky practice anyway you look at it) so I just made the top 6" gluten free. Making the entire cake with specialty flour would have cost a fortune!

For this cake I would suggest having the vegan cake a totally different flavor (or different filling) so as not to mix up with the other cake. By only doing the top tier vegan it also allows you to use your tried and true recipes, if the first batch of vegan goes wrong (or comes out too short etc) it is a lot easier to bake/rebake just for the one tier.

Ok, y'all, I made a test run with the vegan cake recipe I already had. I admit to tweaking it a bit!

I prepared the basic batter then made 1/3 of it plain vanilla (7" oval) and the rest chocolate (7" oval and cupcakes). Here is what I experienced:

First, I was surprised at how well they both rose. I filled the oval pans a touch past halfway and they domed above the top of the pan! The cupcakes were beautiful, just a slight mound above the paper. Frankly some of the prettiest cupcakes I've ever made!

The vanilla cooked up with a bit of a texture issue in the top center. I may be wrong, but flower nails or cores appear necessary. The flavor was a light vanilla with a well, different sort of twist. Not bad, just almost as if it was waiting to be a banana, carrot or spice cake. Which is what I am thinking of trying tomorrow!

The chocolate, now that was amazing! The texture was lovely and the flavor was a moderate, milk chocolate sort of intensity. I really enjoyed it.

I put it to the 5 year old DS test and he enjoyed both, though he ate more chocolate. He is one of the most honest taste testers I have available and has an oddly discerning palette for a little kid. I've fed him too much of the gourmet stuff I experiment with for catering. We went on a cruise for his birthday and after the first dinner (with the kiddie menu) he started ordering off the adult menu because "this food is plain."

I have enough to inflict on a few more unsuspecting folks tonight...

Sounds good so far gateauxdamour; care to share your recipes?

I did a vegan wedding cake (its the silver colored one with the two flowers on top) in my pics. Although it was very stressful for me and I did so much more research on it than my other cakes I can truly say it was one of the most rewarding ones. The bride, groom and everyone at the wedding loved it. I am sure it will turn out great for you.

gateauxdamour - did you use the duncan hines mix or did you use the scratch mix that is listed with the instructions for the duncan hines use? Thanks much I have a vegan cake I'm doing in two weeks and wanted to be sure the bride will eat "cake" LOL!

Just a hint, if you use fondant make sure it is vegan too, the marshmellow have gelatin in them unless you get the special kind.

Also, earth balance butter and shortening sticks will work really well for you. Look for them in health food/natural store.

Julia

I first chose the Vegan White Cake recipe here on CC that was submitted by waterfallsoygurl which she altered from vegweb.com

Then I tweaked it to suit my taste and the fact I was out of applesauce! On the real cake the only major difference would be the use of vegan margarine; all I had on hand was normal margarine which had some milk casein in it. Here is what I made:

3 1/2 cups white lily ap flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup margarine
2 Tbls soybean oil
1 Tbls ground flax seeds mixed with 2 Tbls water & set aside
1 cup sprite
1 cup vanilla soy milk
1 Tbls + 1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbls white vinegar

I mixed according to waterfallsoygurl 's instructions; basically the normal cream sugar/margarine, mix wet, mix dry, then alternately combine. The only trick was you wait to add the vinegar till the very end. I'm guessing this is because you want the chemical reaction between the vinegar and soda to make the cake begin to rise just as it is being put in the oven.

At this point I split the batter. 1/3 was left in it's vanilla form.
The other 2/3 of batter was given the addition of 1/2 cup cocoa powder.

The pans were prepped with the homemade cake release (mine was vegan). The oven was preheated at 350 degrees F. I started checking the pans at 35 minutes. It took a bit longer.

As I said in an earlier post, I really think nails/cores would be necessary for larger cakes. I might also try the bake longer at lower temp method, too.

I also wanted to add that people I used as guinea pigs last night all had similar comments.

The chocolate was favored, but then, it is *chocolate* so there is no surprise there! The consensus was that if you didn't know it was vegan, you would think it was standard chocolate cake. This was my thinking as well!

They liked the vanilla, too. Nobody seemed thrown by the color. Comments were that it was a smooth, mild flavor and almost banana cake/bread-like.

Everyone tasted it without icing so that the true cake flavor wouldn't be overpowered. Comments were frequently made regarding the moistness and texture of the cakes. Texture when slicing/eating was less dense than a standard scratch cake but not as light/fluffy as box cake. Very pleasant, actually!

The bride wants some standard cake, too. I'm now thinking of alternating tiers of chocolate vegan and vanilla standard. Using the tall tier as I originally planned, the tiers won't touch to begin with, so it should suit both groups!

I really appreciate everyone jumping in to help me with this new experience!

Thanks much for the reply.