Hi everyone. A customer is requesting a cake for her daughter's first birthday, she wants to do a cake smash photo shoot (didn't even know those things existed)

The thing is she says the cake has to be sugar, dairy, honey and citrus free 

Does anyone have a recipe I can use? I already found a frosting made of coconut cream, but I'm having the hardest time finding a cake recipe without sugar. I can use normal flour apparently

Thank you!!

Is her issue just with cane sugar and honey for sweeteners?

If so, maybe look for one with maple syrup or agave in it?

What kind of sweetener is in the icing?  

Are they all allergy issues?

Hi, I often substitute Xylitol for sugar (1:1 replacement), but too much can cause digestive upset.  Otherwise, look into using stevia, lucuma or erythritol (another sugar alcohol, may cause same problems as too much xylitol)  or a combination of them to replace the sugar.  

Dairy is very easy, there are tons of dairy free milk options ie:  soy, rice, oat, flax, coconut....any one of these can easily replace dairy.

Maybe ask your customer what they want you to use for replacements.

Hope this helps! :)

I really have no idea if it's because of the kid's age, or allergies, or what's the reason.

She just said it can't have those 4 things: sugar, dairy, honey or citrus.

The icing I found doesn't have any sugar, it's just whipping super cold coconut cream. I am actually afraid it won't hold its shape during the photo shoot, especially since she wants a cupcake shape with rosettes.

Thank you! I think there is a Splenda specially for baking. I'll try to find that one.

I don't think I've ever heard of the other things you mention here in my country =(

I made whipped coconut cream once as a cream substitute as my daughter was dairy intolerant as a baby - it will not hold any sort of shape to pipe.

You need to find out why they can't have those things, it will be pretty hard to make a rosette cake with an icing that has no structure to it. If it a preference thing then they may be a bit flexible, if it is an allergy thing then you will just have to work round it.

Personally if it is not an allergy thing and they want to give the kid a cake to play with I would either be telling them I would ice it with mashed potatoes or they could have a sugar icing. If they don't want the kid to eat a heap of icing then they could use a design that really only required a thin coat of icing, almost like a crumb coat.

Hello! 

In the bakery I work full time at we use Earths Balance brand margarine in our Vegan Frosting. You just mix it with the sugar, flavoring and water like a classic American buttercream. Earths Balance can be found anywhere and the substitution ratio is the same. As far as sugar free icing goes, We just use classic granulated splenda. Since the "sugar crystals" in splenda are actually kind of powdery it works very well. I wish you best of luck with your smash cake! 

hmm yeah I'd ask for more details about "why". I've never heard of a sugar allergy. unless she is diabetic?

If it's more like, she just doesn't want the baby eating a lot of sugar for nutritional reasons, then I would kind of think you'd be more leery of artificial sweeteners like splenda. I know I didn't want my kids eating a ton of sugar at 1 but I would definitely not want them having splenda

you could possibly make a cream cheese frosting (using vegan "cream cheese") that is barely sweetened. So then you could say, I only added a little sugar. That would probably be reasonably firm for piping ? You could even use a juice concentrate to sweeten.

for example look at this recipe- the frosting is cream cheese and apple juice concentrate-I saw a recipe for a smash cake where the frosting was cream cheese and apple juice concentrate. I assume vegan cream cheese would have similar texture

this was the recipe I saw

http://www.fitmamarealfood.com/babys-first-smash-cake-healthy-no-sugar-banana-cake/

Thank you so much everyone for all your advice!

I asked her what the deal was with sugar and after I explained to her that I was afraid the frosting would not hold its shape, specially during the 1 hour photoshoot, she finally said it was because her daughter has never tried sugar.

She then said the frosting AND the cake could have sugar. She then even said they were ok with me using skim milk on the cake 

I really appreciate all your imput and advice, I know it will help me a lot in the future!

Hi!

     I would suggest using frozen juice concentrate.  My mom has a book called "I Can't Believe This Has No Sugar Cookbook", and that's basically all they use for sweeteners.

God bless!

- Shelby

Powdered xylitol is great for sugar free cakes - but make sure the person is aware of what it is and ok with it, regular sugar is probably a better bet for a little one. Fruit puree, dates, banana and fruit juice concentrate replace sugar in cakes really well but limit flavor options. 

Milk can be replaced one to one with rice, soy, almond, cashew milk just buy unflavored 

A great vegan frosting is to make easy swiss meringue buttercream  (dump 1/2 C pasteurized egg whites and 1 lb powdered sugar in the mixer, whip for 8 minutes until glossy thick meringue forms, slowly add in 1 lb cubed room temperature butter and whip until gloss and smooth) and substitute Earth's balance for the butter, its vegan. Id suggest adding  in some high ratio shortening NOT CRISCO to make this maintain its shape. 

Meringue frostings are not vegan... they contain eggs... vegans do not consume eggs... some types of vegetarians do, but vegans do not... 

whoops that's my dairy free frosting that uses  vegan butter.  
I have a fully vegan recipe as well but the post asked for dairy free so I figured the little one could have eggs. Correct recipe, wrong name
Please do not give products with eggs to vegans !