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.
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.
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.
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.
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!