Vegan Baking Explorations

This past weekend was the weekend of baking blunders and victories. My friend Amanda's Lady Gaga themed birthday part was on Saturday and I wanted to bake her a vegan cake that was splendiferiously Gaga inspired.

My plan was to bake a 6 layered cake, each layer a color of the rainbow, layer orange cream between the layers, cover the cake with fondant and create either a Gaga crown or a roller derby skate from gum paste for the top (Amanda's a Maine Roller Derby Girl with the Port Authorities- go check them out!). That was my plan.

However, plans can go awry. Although I've changed to a vegan diet for the new year (check out my other blog, The Vegan Explorer), I haven't quite gotten a full handle on vegan baking yet. I started baking at 9:30am on Saturday - first mistake, waiting until the day the cake is due. The first cake was a total disaster. It didn't rise well, it formed a strange hard sugary crust, and tasted awful! EW! I fed it to the trashcan after attempting to fix it twice.

Push the clock forward to noon. I start debating, do I stick to my vision and try again or do I make my no-fail Vegan Italian Polenta Cake instead? It was a toughie. I decided to go for it again, I'm no quitter! So I reformulated my recipe and started over. The layers were thin and a little bit sticky, but tasted great so I kept going. Fast forward to 4:30 pm. All of the layers are completed and cooled, time to start stacking and create my vegan orange butter cream. Ut oh, here comes trouble. How do you make "butter" cream without butter?? Well, the first attempt was a disaster. Somehow it started separating and just looked gross. The second version was a little better but not perfect...though I used it because I was running out of time.

Rather than take the time to roll out fondant for a cake that was already sort of uneven and time was running short (it was already 6:30), I made a vegan vanilla icing (thanks to the help of one of my boyfriend's cookbooks) and my boyfriend helped with icing the outside of the cake. He did a beautiful job of evening out the cake.

Still, I was totally deflated. I didn't think this cake would taste good and I just wasn't happy with the quality - it was not my usual highly polished work. My boyfriend convinced me not to pitch it into the trash and we left for the party. I'm really grateful that he got me to bring it because it seemed to be a big hit! Amanda and her friends appeared to love it and dubbed the cake "Gayke" - love it.

The Gayke!
Photo by Justin Lewis, filmaperture Photography

The Gayke's rainbowy layers!

Photo by Justin Lewis, filmaperture Photography 

On Sunday, my boyfriend and I had our second annual Hot Chocolatey Crafty Night and I thought I'd bake my Polenta Cake. I made the cake, which turned out beautifully, but when I went to make the glaze (a recipe I made without really writing down what I did...a no no for me!) it came out horribly. I went through three versions until I got something I was mildly happy with but for some reason it did not come out the same way it had the first time (and I ended up scalding myself with boiling hot marmalade in the process and am now donning two blisters on my face and one on my finger - boyfriend medic to the rescue!). I still need to figure out what happened  - yes it was still good, but it was not the same glaze I'd made a few weeks before. Gah! Frustrations!

And through all this frustration, my boyfriend stuck by my side. He was incredibly supportive, encouraging, made me laugh, pitched in to help, played doctor to my wounds, and helped me realize that it really is okay to mess up sometimes. I don't have to be perfect and I can learn through making mistakes. He certainly is a good guy :)