Vegan MoFo – Wedding Cake

Update: click here to read about our wedding day, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the lovely.

Oh Cake. Why has it taken me so long to talk about cake.

One of the first decisions we made after getting engaged was who we wanted to make our cake. No, I’m not joking. Maybe this was premature, as new vegan bakeries have actually opened in the time it took us to get close to the wedding, but I still feel good about our decision to go with Sweets from the Earth.

JC and I met up with Ilana Kadonoff, owner and chief baker extraordinaire at Sweets from the Earth  (SFTE) a few months after our engagement party, and it was a really positive meeting. She was so nice and helpful, and gave us ideas, and direction when we only had a slight picture in mind. We sampled a variety of Sweets from the Earth cake flavours in the form of tasty SFTE cupcakes  – including some flavours I hadn’t even considered and decided on the flavours that will eventually make up our wedding cake tiers next month.

Do go for cake tastings. We were ready to go after one meeting, but you might want to sample some of the other vegan cake options available to you, especially if you live in Toronto. Other vegan and vegan-friendly options in Toronto off the top of my head are Bunner’s Bake Shop, Tori’s Bake Shop, Rashmi’s Bakery, and Vegan Danish Bakery (especially if you’re Danish – they have Kransekake.)

But… what if you’re not in Toronto?

Well, other then the awesome small industry of independent vegan cake makers (Do check your community – you might just be pleasantly surprised) you can always contact a local bakery in your town or city and ask them… would they make you a vegan cake? If you don’t know where to start, you can ask at your local natural foods store, or veg restaurant, and they might also be able to special order or connect you with a vegan-friendly pastry chef.

As you probably already know there are lots of alternatives for eggs, or butter, or milk out there. Depending on where you are you might want to ask about the sugar they use, or the margarine, as those can have mysterious origins and ingredients (like bone-char filtration for sugar or whey and vitamin D3 in margarine) and non-vegan people often don’t consider them.

Tips for getting a vegan wedding cake made at a non-vegan bakery:

• Be prepared to work with your potential bakery – tell them about egg alternatives. You could use something like Beyond Egg, Ener-G egg replacer, or whatever your cake requires (maybe flax? banana? depending on the flavours and function of the egg in the cake you’re looking for.)
• Earth Balance has margarine in stick-form, you can use coconut oil, or suggest alternatives like Buttery Bliss or Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Palm Oil Free Buttah.
• Sugar, find out what their brand is, and whether they are open to using a different one if it’s filtered through bone char.
• Offer to help find dairy and egg substitutions.
• Be nice, and awesome, but if a bakery isn’t being nice and awesome to you… find someone else.

Vegan Wedding Cake Alternatives

I like cake. JC likes cake. We’re cake people, but I know not everyone is. Luckily, weddings are usually your day to do what makes you happy (within reason).

I’ve seen some really awesome cake alternative ideas like:

• Cupcake trees/bars/towers/buffets/etc (vegans – we’ve got cupcakes down right?)

• Cookies (check out this super cute Cookie Buffet from Vegan Eats & Treats)
• Rice krispie towers (you could use this recipe… just make a whole bunch of it) – Take a look at a non-vegan example of at My Knot Couture.)
• Pies (like… so many options. Easy As Vegan Pie from Hannah Kaminsky, Vegan Pie in the  Sky from Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero and more. Check out this post on Knotty Bride for more about (not vegan) pies at weddings.
• Make a tower of donuts (like the idea here on Fork & Beans)
• Candied apples
• Vegetable cake (like… EarthyVeg)
• Like a Meat Cake of MoFo’s past (i’m not the only one that is both awed and a little frightened of this right?)
• or anything else that floats your party boat.

As the wedding draws closer, I can tell I’m losing Vegan MoFo Steam this month, so much to do, so many RSVPs left to receive, and final details to think about. Phew! Thanks for reading.

Please share your favourite cake or cake alternative flavours, or any advice you might have about getting cake from non-vegan vendors.