Vegan birthday cake for 25 kids

[Sakura03]

I’m struggling to find anywhere I can get a vegan birthday cake large enough unless I order a bespoke one and the quote I’ve had so far are between £90-110. I love good quality cake but with everything else it’s adding up, just to add the is just one vegan kid at the party but wouldn’t it been mean to just provide them a vegan cupcake (I’ve had some gorgeous vegan cakes so that’s definitely not an issue). I’ve never baked a vegan cake but I’m an okay baker in general however that’s obviously more time consuming… do I just suck it up and order an expensive bespoke cake🙈😬? Any suggestions please? Tia x

That M&S cake is vegetarian...it's also not very kids birthday cake like!

@underneaththeash I make vegan cakes for a birthday part where someone had allergies, the only really weird ingredient was apple cider vinegar. Margarine is "normal" and oat milk isn't that weird, oil, flour, sugar, baking powder etc are all super boring so what on earth do you have against a tablespoon of ACV?????

There's all sorts of stuff added to shop bought cakes like stabilisers and preservatives but fundamentally vegan cake isn't that weird or different.

AriettyHomily my son loves chocolate cake! I'm aware it's vegetarian hence why I'm getting an additional vegan cake for the child and parent who are vegans.

Thank you viruses that proves my point. This is the list of ingredients in it.....

Sugar, Water, Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin], Vegetable Oil (Rapeseed), Cake Margarine [Palm Oil, Rapeseed Oil, Water, Salt, Flavouring], Cocoa Powder, Glucose Syrup, Humectant (Vegetable Glycerine), Dark Chocolate [Cocoa Mass, Raw Cane Sugar, Cocoa Butter], Wheat Protein Isolate, Raising Agents (Sodium Bicarbonate, Disodium Pyrophosphate), Wheat Starch, Emulsifiers (Methylcellulose, Polyglycerol Esters of Fatty Acids, Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Flavourings, Stabiliser (Xanthan Gum), Colours (Carotene, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxide), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Chocolate contains 60% Cocoa Solid

And the normal chocolate cake

https://groceries.asda.com/product/birthday-party-cakes/asda-chocolate-celebration-cake/2914513

Chocolate Ganache Frosting (26%) [Sugar, Palm Oil, Water, Dark Chocolate [Cocoa Mass, Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins), Flavouring], Milk Chocolate [Sugar, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins), Flavouring], Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder, Rapeseed Oil, Whipping Cream (Milk), Skimmed Milk Powder, Dried Glucose Syrup, Glucose Syrup, Maize Starch, Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Dried Egg White], Sugar, Fortified Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin (B3), Thiamin (B1)], Pasteurised Whole Egg, Milk Chocolate Curls (9%) [Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Lactose (Milk), Whey Powder (Milk), Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins), Flavouring], Rapeseed Oil, Humectant (Glycerol), Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder, Glucose Syrup, Marbled Chocolate Curls [Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Whole Milk Powder, Lactose (Milk), Whey Powder (Milk), Milk Fat, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins), Vanilla Extract], Maize Starch, Raising Agents (Diphosphates, Sodium Carbonates), Water, Dried Glucose Syrup, Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Oil, Emulsifiers (Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate, Soya Lecithins), Preservative (Sorbic Acid), Dried Egg White, Shea Oil, Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid), Flavouring, *Rainforest Alliance Certified

How is that better?

You can used a mashed banana in place of egg in a chocolate cake (makes it taste slightly banana-y but that works with the chocolate) or soaked flaxseeds.

Shop bought birthday cake will be full of rubbish. Yet heaven forbid it should be vegan rubbish…

Most shop bought cakes are full of artificial ingredients even if they aren't vegan. I think this argument would only apply if you were comparing a home made non vegan cake to a shop bought vegan cake.

@underneaththeash as a PP said you can you ground flaxseed or chia seed as an egg replacement. Perfectly healthy and non processed. If I was making a vegan cake at home I'd use oil (non refined) and flax seeds to replace the butter and egg and not a single processed ingredient.
Your argument does not hold up. Both vegan and non vegan store bought cakes can be full of processed ingredients but it is perfectly possible to make a vegan cake which has no processed ingredients. If someone offered you a cake not in its packaging how would you know which it was ?

I think your plan is good OP, I would be chuffed with my own cupcake.

There aren't any odd ingredients in my vegan chocolate cake, just ACV as mentioned above 😂

Exactly @olderthanyouthink !
I have never eaten a cake for its nutritional value anyway

Me too. I had a reaction recently (mild) as the only gluten free cake they had was also vegan and was a chocolate cake. I hadn't even thought to ask about bananas and it's not an ingredient they have to highlight.

Nope, I'd totally provide them with a vegan cup cake! Absolutely fine.....

Sorry, to finish....

cake, absolutely fine!

Yeah, because aquafaba and flax seeds are "full of chemicals"

Your ignorance is showing, btw.

Thanks DialsMavis and Talkwhilstyouwalk. I've ordered the chocolate cake from M&S and will get a couple of vegan cupcakes. Now on to party bags🙈😬...

What planet are you living on? Most dairy free cakes are made using things like nut milks, coconut milk, coconut oil, bananas, flax seeds and water, vegetable oil, nut butters, just to name a few that you can use to replace cows milk or eggs etc

im not sure if you know or not but you can always read the ingredients on the back of a box. How do you think your dairy cake can sit on a shelf for months on end without going mouldy? Ah yes, all those nasty preservatives. And yes, a dairy cake is also processed manufactured rubbish. Do you really think the ham you buy from Tesco is not processed? Or the sausages and bacon is just meat? It’s all processed crap that contains a percentage of meat, some more than others. The back of a packet will even tell you the percentage of meat your sausage etc contains and shock horror - it’s also full of shit

And no, I’m not vegan either. Unless our food comes from the earth or is 100% pure then most of the stuff on our shelves is processed in some way. I hope you never eat crisps, chocolate etc

plant based diet is the least processed diet you could probably follow

@SunflowerGirl91 i actually don’t eat chocolate or cake much. Did you not look at the ingredients in that cake that was posted. I think there were at least 10 different additives/chemicals.

vegan substitutes are full of additives and chemicals. Sure if you do eat only vegetables then it’s not (and we do have two meat-free days in our house) and I do make most things from scratch. But there seems to be this appearance that vegan food is healthier and it categorically isn’t. It’s lacking in essential amino acids, b12 and calcium plus if you eat the meat/diary substitutes they are full off additives. Processed food of most kinds is bad for you.

cake isn’t a great thing to eat anyway, but to then fill it with additives/chemicals makes it even worse.

I’m absolutely desperate to nail a slice of shop-bought preservative-filled chocolate cake now, don’t care what’s in it or whether it’s vegan, vegetarian or whatever, so long as it has that bouncy washing up sponge quality with icing so sweet it’s gritty on your teeth.

@underneaththeash did you not look at the even longer list of ingredients for "normal" chocolate cake that I put directly under you post. No? Didn't suit your agenda so you ignored it?

I'm not even vegan just can't stay this nonsense

It's your weird agenda focusing on vegan processed food only that makes you look irrational @underneaththeash

@underneaththeash why are you so anti - vegan food? You're not responding to any of the posts explaining how vegan food can be healthy and non-vegan food can be unhealthy, and your assertions that you wouldn't want your child to eat any vegan cake because of concerns about chemicals seem really disproportionate. Have you had bad experiences with vegans or vegan food in the past?

Vegan or plant-based diets can be perfectly healthy. It's also possible to have a vegan diet that's full of processed food and that's really quite unhealthy as a result. It's also very easy (arguably easier!) to have a non-vegan diet that's full of processed junk and the additives/chemicals that worry you so much.

As several people, myself included, have pointed out, you don't need to use artificial or even particularly unusual ingredients as substitutes in vegan cooking. There's nothing to be scared of and I struggle to see anything boycott-able about banana, apple cider vinegar, nuts and seeds.

If you compare a processed or shop-bought product to an equivalent made from scratch, the from-scratch one will almost always have fewer additives and preservatives. Shops need their products to still be edible after transportation and sitting on their shelves, while a homemade product is likely to be served and eaten straight away. You can't use a comparison of homemade non-vegan vs processed vegan food as a way of 'proving' vegan food is unhealthy, as it's not a valid comparison.

Oh I'm fully aware, I'm a chef... I make vegan cakes regularly as well as many other vegan dishes . Vegan buttercream is so easy, I use the flora plant based butter which is fantastic and you wouldn't know it wasn't real butter too, even on toast .

And the OGG brand vegan cupcakes are lovely too.

@Dartmoorcheffy yes - these are the ingredients
Flora 100% Natural Ingredients: plant oils (rapeseed , palm1, sunflower 1%, linseed), water, salt 1.35%, plant based emulsifier (lecithin), faba bean protein, natural flavourings, vitamin A.

or you could just use butter - which is milk and salt.
i don’t want to eat palm oil either. Do you?

To be fair, they’re never marketed as a healthier option they’re marketed as a meat substitute. If people wish to assume that means healthier then that’s on them

most of our diet is processed. Anything that isn’t fresh is preserved and processed, vegan or not.