I already bitched about this in the vegan theory club cooking discord bub I'm still bent the fuck out of shape over it.
Ok, so my kid's birthday party was yesterday and the last 2 times I wasn't able to eat the cake because it was made with extra helping of animals. I just sat their on my phone and took a few pictures or whatever. I helped with set up and tear down.
We are also going broke because I'm too fucking stupid to hold down a job and after over a year and a half of trying to find a job, we are at the point where I am considering getting rid of the rest of our streaming services and pull our youngest out of daycare. We are barely surviving on a teacher's salary right now.
In the past, my partner has gone all out on our kids' parties but I was working so it was fine. This time, I wanted to try to save money where we could. In the past, my partner would get a cake from a local bakery that costs like $80 and only 1/4 would get eaten and I'd throw the rest away 2 months later because it got forgotten in the back of our garage fridge.
So this year I wanted to kill 2 vegan birds with one stone and make my kid's birthday cake. I could make it for way cheaper and also sub in vegan ingredients.
I buy all the ingredients and plan on making it Saturday. My mother-in-law decides to offer to make a cake for my kid after finding out we aren't spending $80 on a cake. I already bought the ingredients so I politely say no thanks. Because I am saving money, not wasting it. And because I wanted to enjoy cake at my kid's birthday party.
I got up early yesterday, put my earbuds in and threw on some baking metal. To be fair it was a box cake mix and the frosting was also pre-made. I was gonna do this as a test run before autistic hyper-focus takes over and I proceed to deep dive into making the perfect vegan cake. So I mix it up and bake it and do the toothpick test and it comes out clean. I wait for it to cool and frost it and it's good. Life is good. We good.
Well, It was on the softer side of done. My mother-in-law goes to cut the cake and it crumbles. She then proceeds, in front of like 15 people, to tell me that my cake sucks and I should have just let her make it because it wouldn't suck. In front of me, my partner, our kids, our friends, etc. So that's great.
I spiral, because I do that. and I'm still processing it. She seemed like she wanted to go out of her way to make a deal about it because she knows I'm vegan and likes to call it weird or whatever when she can.
I know this is all over a stupid cake but she really could have just laughed it off when it was falling apart instead of slopping it on to everyone's plate like she was a lunchlady in the 6th circle of hell or something.
That's it. That's my rant. I'm mostly just hoping that I could get it off my chest and move on.
I am always looking for recipes so if anyone has a good cake recipe that can adapt to flavors like vanilla or chocolate and such, I'm definitely interested. A tiny caveat is that the cake mix and frosting used palm oil and I'm really trying to avoid that because of how palm farming wrecked the environment.
I'm cutting all ties with your mother-in-law because of this. Unacceptable behavior.
I'm not gonna be over it for a while. We had a text convo about a job interview last week and she dropped the whole "instead of being sad, just be happy. Only unhappy people choose to be unhappy." I have persistent depressive disorder. Diagnosed twice. I have other stories but don't wanna turn this post into something else.
If it's any help, when I first met her she said I "have no redeeming qualities" so it's not like any of this is super new? I guess?
When I first met my MIL, I had met my now wife on Tinder, her first question to me was “so are you a serial killer or what?” She still brings it up, 10 years later, how weird it is we met online and how dangerous that could have been.
All my sympathy comrade.
My partner and I met online like right before social media really took off. I still had a Myspace page. We made the joke more than a few times about what the odds of us both being serial killers were lol
fuck em that sounds good as hell, the best seasoning in the world is "this was literally still in the oven two hours ago"
I will admit it was a bit wet. I took it out too soon or I could have used a bit less liquid maybe. I was following a box recipe for a carnist cake and it was my first time so not really sure.
But like if you've ever had any dessert that was rich and super moist, it was like that. It definitely wasn't holding it's shape though, except for a few pieces.
A little bit longer mixing, a little less liquid, a little bit more egg substitute, a little bit longer in the oven, any of these things will firm up the cake's structure. I'm admittedly dumb as shit about specifically vegan baking so a different substitute could also be the thing that works for you. But you're blowing protein-reinforced starch bubbles in any case, so those are all still good places to start tweaking.
Sounds like solid advice to me. Thanks. I did hand mix so that's probably a good starting point.
Honestly if you want vegan recipes just look up a normal recipe and sub shit yourself. You just gotta learn how to sub in stuff correctly because a lot of vegan recipes online are fucking trash.
Applesauce, banana, pumpkin, or egg substitute powders (generally potato/rice starch, flax/arrowroot seed powder, etc.) all work fine depending what you want. Obviously banana and pumpkin have a flavor they’ll impart so I only use those if it goes with what I am making. Applesauce doesn’t add too much that buttermilk wouldn’t already add.
Buttermilk you gotta add some acid (applesauce for egg works here, or just add some lemon juice or whatever.)
Also I mean…. Who cares if the cake was crumbly it probably still tasted fine?
If you’re going to be vegan (and aren’t loaded) you pretty much have to learn how to cook and bake on your own and it may take a bit but it’ll be worth it.
Honestly if you want vegan recipes just look up a normal recipe and sub shit yourself.
This is my next step tbh. I was mostly just wanting a warm up that didn't involve any brain power because I was testing with JUST egg sub since it's what I had access to. If that turned out(and for what it's worth, it did) then I was gonna work on converting. I converted my favorite soup recipes already so I'm getting the hang of vegan-ifying recipies.
For buttermilk, I read that you can pull it off by adding acid to a oat or soy milk but I haven't tried it. Gonna keep the applesauce, banana and pumpkin in mind too. Now I wanna try a pumpkin spice cake lol.
If you’re going to be vegan (and aren’t loaded) you pretty much have to learn how to cook and bake on your own and it may take a bit but it’ll be worth it.
I'm learning this as I go. I'm also looking to move to more whole foods instead of junk foods. I enjoy cooking but am trying to climb out of this crippling depression so hoping to get to that soon.
Also I mean…. Who cares if the cake was crumbly it probably still tasted fine?
It tasted just fine lol. It was a bit wet and that's why I think I should have let it bake for like 5 more minutes. I haven't had cake in 2 years and thought it was great. You couldn't tell it was vegan.
Yup just egg works great as a sub, i prefer apple sauce because it’s cheaper.
Yeah just a teaspoon or two of lemon juice in soy milk (i feel like soy milk works better), and becomes like buttermilk, so i use that in all cakes and pancakes.
I mainly do cooking and my partner does baking so i can ask them for some tips or recipes. Was there a specific type of cake you wanted to make or were you just wanting to do the standard yellow cake with the vanilla frostings?
A basic sheet style white cake that can be vanilla of chocolate would be awesome. Nothing fancy really. I do miss carrot cake, German chocolate, and Italian cream though but I'm not sure I have the energy or finances to tackle those.
Here’s a pretty good carrot cake recipe she’s made before. carrot cake is my favorite and this was my the first one i had since going vegan that i liked. It is a little moist so keep that in mind but i think mainly it’s just not dry.
Comes equipped with a frosting recipe too. This looks awesome, thanks!
I just made a vegan pumpkin pie and totally fucked up the crust but that was my b not the recipe (Crisco bars are twice the size as butter bars and i even read that but i got distracted and omg so stuuuuupid). My friends still ate most of it and called it awesome because they aren't assholes like your MIL.
Those friends have awesome v-cake recipes so I'll edit this later when they reply to me with some of my favorite cakes recipes
I actually made a pumpkin pie last year that mostly turned out. It was basically a puree and coconut cream base, but when baking it the oil separated from the cream and the bottom of the pan was a pool of oil. It still tasted great though. Not many people ate it because it was vegan trash though. More for me!
If you get the recipes can you tag me so I don't miss it?
This is the pumpkin pie recipe I followed: https://www.noracooks.com/vegan-pumpkin-pie/
I promise i will :) they're currently on the road driving home from my town so it will be a few hours before i can get em to you. They've been vegan for years and baking is her hobby so she's a good resource for me too. Now i have impetus to ask her. Let's both look forward to them! :D
If they have any fan fav recipes for dinner and such I'd love to grab those too. I'm looking to go WFPB in the future and am on a recipe hunt.
Sorry that happened to you. Them murderers do seem to be trying to clear their conscience by putting others down sometimes. Last week a coworker was on about how those plants might feel pain. Real cringe.
I don't do cakes much so I can't rly offer much advice on that. In my experience baking just takes a few tries to adjust the moisture in your dough and the baking time/tempertaure in your oven (every oven is a bit different) and even then it might somtimes go a bit wrong.
Your co-worker sounds like a winner too. Plants don't scream when they get ripped apart like skinning a rabbit but I digress. I had a childhood... There were rabbits and pigs.
I think part of what makes it easier for me to be vegan is that I've actually seen it in person, first hand.
I'm gonna start trying to do cakes maybe. I've done sourdough and it's for sure getting the right hydration, etc. I just wanna wait until I have some disposable income because trial and error and what not.
That sucks, and I'm sorry that happened. I have a vegan muffin recipe that basically tastes like a cupcake because of the sugar content (these are not healthy) and if you leave out the chocolate chips it's basically cake batter. The site has a ton of other dessert recipes too.
Here's the recipe I've used.
Gonna save this recipe and keep it in mind when I get back to making sucky vegan cake. Thanks. Converting to cake shouldn't be too hard. I'm more of a cook than a baker though so it might turn into a disaster.
Hopefully the lingering toxicity will leave like a fart in the wind, and you can find the peace to bake and move at your own pace.
Show
I think it's gonna be the topic at my next therapy session. Between that and her telling my I'm chronically depressed just because I want to be is putting me just about at my limit.
I am fully endorsing the no contact like the other commenter. Wtf. That's going out of the way to be cruel. You deserve better than that.
It's funny and this might be overshare/off topic for this post but I'm also super late diagnosed autistic so I wonder if I would have even realized what she was doing was out of line like 2 years ago.
She claims to be Christ-like but won't even meet family members where they are at. I'm starting to think when we were cooking for the homeless, that she must have felt like it was a chore instead of helping those that didn't have food.
I would say trust your gut on that, being ND can open us up to all kinds of gross NT behavior. Hope you have a better week comrade!
Your MIL thinks murder is cool and good if the people being murdered look sufficiently different. Her opinions suck, she can sit on a pineapple.
She's a nice Christian Trumper so she loves Jesus and killing brown people in the middle east.
I wish I had some of your cake, your mil doesn’t deserve you.
Also please consider the phrase feed two birds with one scone.
I'm serious though, once we have our finances in order, I'm gonna learn how to make a damn cake.
Thanksgiving this year is gonna be so fucking fun too lol.
