Thursday, June 5, 2008

Test cake

Once again, I want to make Porgie a birthday cake from scratch. Due to Izzy's allergies, I am currently eating a vegan diet. This means that I am not eating eggs or diary. This makes baking a cake fairly difficult. In the cake recipe, I substituted milk with rice milk, and I substituted eggs with applesauce.

Look at the lovely cake I baked...

It sinks in toward the center in this picture, but it looked perfect in the pan. I swear! When I was moving the cake from the pan to the plate, the bottom of the cake stuck to the pan. I accidentally ripped the center of the cake out while I was trying to extract it from the pan. Oops!

The recipe for the icing called for margarine. But our margarine has soy in it. Since I can't eat soy, I thought it would be a really great idea to substitute the margarine with canola oil. Not a good plan...
The icing was very runny, which resulted in this...



So, this year's test cake was much better than last year's test cake, but still not perfect. Any suggestions on the icing thing? Remember I can't eat soy, eggs, dairy, peanuts, or lime.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah, why bother with icing?

Can you use those little gel-pen thingies to write her name on the cake? I don't know what's in them aside from food coloring and some icing-flavored gel-like substance.

Bon said...

icing, in my personal opinion, is absolutely necessary. but hard to do without dairy or soy, for sure. what about marzipan? are almonds on your diet? marzipan is fabulous, and adorns the very finest cakes. ;)

amanda said...

i vote to skip the icing too. the cake is a beauty without it!!

really who needs it?

oh wait porgie does. it is her birthday after all. how bout just giving her a side of store bought frosting? you know she can lick it right out of the jar and you can capture the moment with a picture?

ok just thought i'd throw that out there.

Shannon said...

Not a cake, but I have a recipe (below) for an amazing vegan lasagna...I eat meat personally but my husband falls off the meat wagon once or twice a year and then we default to this.
Labor intensive, what what isn't when it tastes this good

This will make 1 giant lasagna or 2 good size lasagna's (1 to freeze for later). It's not that cheap, but I don't think any lasagna is and it takes a longtime to prep. BUT, it tastes awsome, I think it taste better than a meat lasagna.Enjoy
Main dish; Savory Sweet Potato/Vegetarian LasagnaLasagna (serves 8)-2-3 boxes of lasagna noodles (Rice Noodles are fine)-2 medium onions, chopped-2 packages of mushrooms, sliced-1 red bell pepper, chopped-1 yellow bell pepper, chopped-1 yellow squash, sliced- 2 heads of broccoli cut up into florets-5 carrots sliced and cut in half-4 sweet potatoes, pre-cooked and mashed up-1-2 cans of sweet corn or 3-4 fresh ears of corn-2 garlic heads, minced-2 medium firm containers of tofu-3-4 jars of a kick butt fat-free tomato sauce-8 roma tomatoes-2 boxes of frozen spinach (thawed and drained to get moisture out)-½ pound of cashews finely ground up in processor- All kinds of spices First, stir-fry all of your vegetables for a couple of minutes in order to get out most of the moisture and get a head start on cooking them. I start with the garlic, onions and mushrooms and then throw them into a bowl. Next I throw in the broccoli and carrots for about five minutes and put in the same bowl. Next, the bell peppers corn and yellow squash. Now I have a big bowl of stir-fried vegetables. I take my firm tofu that I have drained of water by wrapping in a paper towel and break it up and mix in with the vegetables. Next, I add all kinds of spices; garlic powder, pepper, cayenne pepper, red chili flakes, oregano, basil, rosemary, and cumin. I stir it all up and this will serve as my stuffing. In casserole pan add a layer of sauce and then noodles and then more sauce so that all the noodles are covered. This way you don’t have to pre-boil the noodles, they cook in their own juices. Next add a nice generous layer of stuffing and then cover that with more sauce and then another layer of noodles and more sauce. Next, add the rest of your stuffing. Next, I sprinkle on all of my spinach followed by all of my mashed sweet potatoes. Now, add another layer of sauce and the final layer of noodles. Follow this with a final topping of sauce. Now we cover the whole top of the lasagna with thinly sliced roam tomatos and cover the whole top with our ground cashews. Cover with tin foil and place in the oven for 45 minutes at 400F.Take the tin foil off and place back in the oven for 15 minutes.Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes.Slice and serve!!!!

Stefanie said...

Despite the fact that you had runny icing, it still looks very pretty. Plus, I am sure it tasted good too, which is all that matters.

Danielle said...

That looks about as good as any cake I can make. I haven't done any vegan baking yet. I wish I could be more help.

Jen said...

I think you can make icing with just powdered sugar and some rice milk and food coloring? Maybe start with a small amount to see if it makes the right consistency- but I just made some icing for brownies this way a couple of days ago.

Also- does Smart Balance spread have soy in it? I know it is made from vegetable oil- but I don't know about soy... Gah!

Lainey-Paney said...

no suggestions, but I think a homemade cake is always better than store bought. It's sweet, thoughtful, and you made it out of love!

Marni's Organized Mess said...

It looks GREAT to me! :D

Elissa L. said...

Oh man allergies are such a pain. My daughter has them pretty bad and birthday cakes are always a tough one. For icing just mix water, vanilla extract, and lots of powdered sugar. Check Wilton for a good icing recipe!

Rachel said...

It does not look bad at all. I love icing but maybe at more of the other stuff to make it thicker. You may just have to keep playing around with it. I bought some brand from whole foods and did the same thing but added more of the stuff until it was icing like.

Rachel said...

It does not look bad at all. I love icing but maybe at more of the other stuff to make it thicker. You may just have to keep playing around with it. I bought some brand from whole foods and did the same thing but added more of the stuff until it was icing like.

Tabitha said...

It looks great ~ I have no idea what to substitute for icing!!
I put sweets on the top of Laurens last cake (very unhealthy ha ha!!),
I am sure Porgie will love it, no matter what!!
love and hugs ~ Tabitha XXX

Marni's Organized Mess said...

You made me crave my Pumpkin Spice Cake. I totlaly just made it and posted about it. :)

Kris said...

The only homemade icing i make is just conf. sugar & choc (although obviously not needed.. no has butter too. can you do the kind that's veg oil based or does it have dairy in it too?

I'd never have thought of using applesauce as a sub in the cake... sounds yummy and i second the no need for icing w/ that... you could always top with fruit or something like that.

Dana said...

i would eat it with fresh fruit... looks awesome!!! icing or not!

Becks said...

Dang i'd eat it. runny icing and all. At least you baked. Not being able to eat soy is tough. hmm I wish i could be of more help..what about carab?? I have no idea how you would actually use it to make icing. You should go to a health store and see what suggestions they can give you!

I'm totally going to steal your friend Shannon's vegan lasagna recipe!

Amanda said...

Can you make two cakes and miss out the icing and put a little jam in between the cakes? A jam sandwich cake.

Love Amanda x

Anonymous said...

Good job...I like the applesauce idea instead of butter.

I also like the fruit idea....like strawberries or cherries something....the cake with icing still looks good though. Its all about how tastes anyway....at least for me. :)

misguidedmommy said...

do a glaze instead, powdered sugar & water..plus you can put a little extract in it, like orange or something like that.

or you can use this recipe for glaze,
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_32409,00.html?rsrc=search

it turs out so friggin good

Timi said...

This might be a little late, but read the ingredients on the land o lakes stick margarine. They make a non-dairy one, it has a Kosher symbol on it that says OU pareve. I'm not sure if it has soy in it, but it is definetely dairy free, so it's worth a read of the ingredients list. It can sometimes be hard to find though. Good luck.