I need help! My girlfriend is vegan and since we started dating, I’ve enjoyed learning how to cook vegan meals for us to enjoy. Ahead of her birthday she mentioned that she really wanted a birthday cake – there’s a little bit of a sad emotional neglect childhood element.
While we looked at options we stumbled across the Australia Woman’s Weekly Birthday Cake book from the 80s and she spoke about how much she’d wanted this one in particular.
I so want to create this for her but I’m not an amazing baker and am at a loss as to how to achieve this. Any suggestions or advice on how to tackle it?
by ohmygollygoshdangit
11 Comments
Box cake mix + 12oz soda can = vegan cake!
You can research to find different recommended flavor combinations. I’ve made two cakes this way and it was fairly simple and delicious!
What country are you in? That will influence what box mixes and jelly/jello options you have and will help people advise you. (I see you’re using Australian Women’s Weekly recipes, but we can get them in the UK, so I didn’t want to assume).
It looks like a round cake with maybe a bit of the top spooned out to make room for the water (I’d use the sugar-free “snack pack” jello for the water). There are lots of vegan cake mixes and icing. For the fence, I’d dip chik-o-sticks into vegan melted chocolate and just stick to the icing once cooled. The rest of the decorations look like candy (vehan peach rings, mints, licorice) and, of course, the little dolls. Is there anything specific you needed help with that I didn’t mention? I think this is such a sweet gesture!
I love the idea, but it will take some effort on your part. For the general “structure” of the cake, choose a vegan chocolate cake and a chocolate ganache recipe on YouTube and try to do something similar to this [KitKat cake](https://youtu.be/rWWOkssoiUg?si=jsB9l7Jv128OKnpf) (I’m assuming that Australia has vegan Kitkat!). Once you have this swimming pool shaped cake, you will need to go to the store and get the plastic babies (or you could use some Lego figures you already have) and the drink umbrella. All of the other parts are individually made with different types of gummies (which should be the easiest part to find and make yourself). I hope this helps and good luck!!!
Edit: didn’t mention the jelly as the pool water at all! But you can follow a simple recipe like [this](https://youtu.be/UCPghVg4uBg?si=1HkpuAPYQccKW-q7) and put some blue food coloring, mix it up and done!
What country are you in? That’ll help with cookie/candy recommendations. I can give US/Canada advice but wouldn’t necessarily know what candies are available vegan where you are.
For the jelly, if you are in north america/somewhere with a kosher section some of the kosher gelatin are vegan. You’ll want to use something with agar powder instead of gelatin. Sometimes you can also find them in Japanese stores.
Looking at the recipe, the people are plastic. In the US, whole foods and trader joe’s sell some vegan gummies. Sweet smarts makes a vegan peach rings.
Chocolate frosting, the cheap dollar store ones don’t always have milk.
Biscuit sticks – we can get tea biscuits that are chocolate that are vegan but I don’t remember the brand. Won’t be exactly the same as the picture.
Musk sticks often have gelatin but I think you can make your own with fondant.
If it was me – I would buy a plain round vegan cake from the supermarket – because the thought & effort will be the main part of this lovely gesture. The sponge cake won’t be visible, once it has the jelly-water on top & biscuit-fence around it.
Separating out “All the other things to do” To create this cake, from “baking a basic sponge cake” (If that’s not a skill you already have) will make a massive difference in how stressful or enjoyable the experience is.
(Note that it would be easier if you could find a round cake of the right size – but a baker’s trick for “interesting shaped” cakes is to use some of the chocolate buttercream-type topping as “mortar” to stick pieces together that you cut from a different shaped cake.
Not as hard as you think, source me twice a year for my kids. Do you have the recepie for that cake? Then find something similar as an vegan version. Use her favorite flavor for the cake. You can convert some recepies easy with egg, milk and butter substitutes. We mostly use Oatmilk and Alsan-S. For the sweets you will have to look around what you can find in the shops in your area and what she likes. As an example if your girlfriend doesn’t like chocolates it would be stupid to put it in or on the cake. I used ladyfingers and vegan chocolate as stones and logs for a construction site cake and made a vanilla parrot cake as the ground. You can use rock candy, marzipane and food colors for the swimmer.
Box mix
Egg Sub- 1tbs flax seed meal +3tbs water (that’s the mix for 1egg sub as necessary)
Can sub the water for plant based mix as well
You can use vegan KitKat bars for the outside of the cake.
chocolate cake & chocolate frosting
https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/the-ultimate-vegan-chocolate-cake/
green jello for the pool
https://lovingitvegan.com/vegan-jello/
ladyfingers for the fence, just dip in melted vegan chocolate, or use pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate
https://schoolnightvegan.com/home/vegan-ladyfingers/
2 pink musk sticks – use 2 pieces of red licorice (normally vegan)
1 black licorice strap – use 1 black licorice (normally vegan)
assorted food colourings
3 kool mints – anything white and round
3 small baby dolls
2 jelly fruit rings- peach rings are normally vegan
green sprinkles
3 jelly snakes – use licorice again
1 small paper umbrella
So with the jelly type candies just make sure there’s no gelatin or carmine and you should be good. Chewy sticky gummies normally don’t have gelatin, bouncy hard ones do.
Looks like a generic chocolate cake with jello on top, you can look for a general vegan chocolate cake and then decorate. Like the design might steal it for me.
https://www.noracooks.com/vegan-chocolate-cake/#wprm-recipe-container-2914
This one I have used multiple times for vegan and non vegan family it’s been a joy