Good morning fellow CCers I have decided to take my first step into entering a cake competition yay!!!! The theme I chose is "Something Borrowed" a cake inspired by another country, culture, or recipe. I am pretty sure they will want to eat my cake after looking at it...Taking inspiration from a good friend, I decided to make an Indian Pillow Cake! She has already helped me with some chocolate and vanilla vegan cake recipes, but what about icings and fondant??? Is satin Ice vegan safe? And, I do not want to just do a vanillla and chocolate cake, I would love to do some type of spice cake and infuse traditional flavors! Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!! Happy Caking!

Mango or Pistachio are common flavours that would work!

Carrot cake with cardamon and pistachios (instead of cinnamon and walnuts) is really nice and slightly unusual. The best way to see if satin ice is vegan friendly would be to find their website and ask, I believe you can get vegan marshmallows so it might be possible to make vegan mmf.

Yours aye
Puss

Satin Ice fondant is vegan, I've confirmed this with the manufacturer since we use Satin Ice fondant in all our vegan cakes.

For icing I would recommend looking at Earth Balance vegan margarine as a replacement for butter. Most shortening is already vegan. You'll also probably want to use beet sugar instead of cane sugar, since most cane sugar is processed with animal bone char.

Found their site it says the fondant has no animal derived ingredients the gum paste has egg White
http://www.satinfinefoods.com/product.htm

Yours aye
Puss

Thanks Ya'll!! Well...I read last year's rules LOL!! They haven't update their site, anyways, I talked to the coordinator...I can still do the Indian with vegan cake, but its got to be cupcakes instead!!! Slight change in design, but no worry! I got to make these babys stand out, the judges are the girls from DC Cupcakes!!

Okay, my question now would be, do i bake all my cupcakes with the Indian flavors and vegan, because after the competition, I will move my display to the vendor's floor and advertise my business to the guests at the Bridal Expo? As much as I want to win the competition, its only $1000 IF I win, but I do not want brides to think they can't get great tasting regular flavors, not all brides will want to even try a vegan cake!!! So, make some vegan some not? Or don't worry about doing a vegan cake, go with my best flavors that will sell my biz at the show, and risk having points taken away for not having the flavors traditional Indian?

If you have a good vegan cake recipe, people won't be able to tell it's vegan. The main difference is that vegan cakes are slightly denser than cakes made with eggs.

Can you have both vegan and non-vegan options available? You could keep the non-vegan products boxed up until the vendor fair, and sample both there. As long as they are clearly labeled you should be OK.

Jason, good idea! Should I offer each judge 2 samples then? I have to make mini cupcakes for them to taste, or go with just the vegan products for tasting...I think I just answered my own question