A Vegan Wedding: The Cake - Traditional Bakeries

A big part of the wedding we are working on right now is the cake. A lot of wedding checklists out there on the internet say we can probably wait a little while for this one, but since we'll be getting a vegan cake we decided it is best to start early. I'm breaking up the cake ordeal into a few different posts as we look at different bakers.

Since the all-vegan options in the area are limited, we decided to also look at traditional bakeries that make vegan cakes.

We started out each email asking if they were able to provide an all vegan cake. I feel as though this is a very important thing to begin with. If a company can't accommodate our vegan diet, then we would only be wasting their time and ours if we didn't find out right away. I think it's rude to the vendor and wasteful for me. We also tried to stick mostly with contacting bakers we had heard could do vegan cakes or who advertised alternative diets on their website. These are the bakeries we contacted:

Michael Anthony Cakes: His cakes are beautiful, and he advertises in many places on his website that he can create a delicious vegan cake. He was one of the first we contacted and we were very excited, but the response was disheartening. 

"The options are two fold for vegan cakes:

1) to have separate floating tiers ie. 12", 10", 8", 6" in a simple rustic design.

2) to have a small cake on top and to do cupcakes on the cupcake tree around

The main reason for this is there isn't a product on the market yet that is vegan that sets up like buttercream firm enough to put fondant on etc.

There is one that has recently been introduced called Melt which has come the closest yet. This non firming feature hinders a stack type cake being done."

He also said that it would have to be a "simple rustic" design. Rustic is not us at all. He sent us a picture of a vegan cake he had made and it was very ugly compared to his other works of art. We had our hearts set on a tiered cake, and also know that it is a complete lie that you can't create a vegan tiered cake, because so many other bakeries do it all the time!

Sprinkles: Sprinkles is an award winning bakery and their cakes are complete and total works of art. When we contacted them, we were told that they could do vegan cakes, and the prices they gave us were very reasonable. We set up a tasting right away. When we got to the adorable little bakery, we were served 4 flavors of cake, a few different fruit fillings, and buttercream. It was all on an ugly paper plate, but the couple next to us had a nice, pretty plate. It was a bit of a turn off but obviously not a huge deal. We were still excited. Then we tried the cakes. The buttercream tasted like bleach. It actually made me sick. I'm assuming they used a cheap margarine or something, since I don't know how else a food product could have that strange flavor. The vanilla cake tasted exactly like the very first vegan cake I ever made almost 4 years ago. It didn't taste bad, but it was very thin and dense, and really not "cake-like" at all. The chocolate cake tasted like mushy paper. It was dark brown but I couldn't really get a chocolate or a cake taste out of it. The other two flavors were a marble and a fruit swirl. The fruit swirl tasted exactly like the vanilla cake, and the marble was actually not that bad. The fillings were all fruit. They weren't horrible but they did taste a bit artificial. I'm honestly not a big fan of fruit in the first place, so I asked if there was any way they could do a chocolate filling. The woman helping us went into the back and brought a chocolate buttercream. It was actually pretty good. I was eating it on its own since I couldn't stand any of the other flavors. Needless to say, we crossed Sprinkles off of our list.

Cupcake Crazy: We set up a tasting after they told us they could do great vegan cakes and gave us an incredibly fair price estimate. When we got to the tasting, we ended up waiting for a really long time, and an employee asked us if we had to try vegan cakes. I was a bit taken aback and ready to walk out the door. However, my fiance encouraged me to wait and the owner of the bakery came out to see us. She was energetic and very, very kind. However, they only had frozen chocolate cupcakes for us, since an employee had sold all of the vegan samples for our tasting. The cake was great, and the buttercream was pretty good too.
When we started to draw out ideas for the cake, it turned into something very elaborate that I was a little uncomfortable with. My fiance loved it, and every time I tried to tone it down a little, I felt kind of like the baker and my fiance were ganging up on me against it.
In the end, though, I was overall happy with the service and the cake - I just wish we could have tried more flavors. Vegan chocolate cake is basically the easiest thing in the world. Vanilla can be a little trickier.
Another interesting note on Cupcake Crazy that confused me was that the owner is vegan (or mostly vegan, that wasn't very clear to me). I think it's strange that a vegan would run a bakery of predominantly non-vegan cakes. Especially with such a quickly growing vegan market and so many consumers looking to cut down on dairy, wouldn't it make sense for her to run a vegan bakery? I also wondered if she tries her own cakes that she makes for customers, or if she just goes by sight.

The Sugar Suite: The Sugar Suite was actually the very first place we contacted because I had heard that they do vegan cakes well. I was really, really excited for this tasting. We walked in and the cakes were amazing. Jennyfer, the owner, was incredibly sweet and professional. She served us a chocolate cake and a vanilla cake. Both were very tasty, and the buttercream was wonderful as well (if you haven't noticed, I take my buttercream seriously). We talked about design options and I just fell in love. I love piping on cakes and that seems to be Jennyfer's thing. We came up with a gorgeous design where she would copy the lace on my dress onto an ombre green cake. 
Unfortunately, when we got the quote it was around $800, and that's just too much.

Frosting On the Cake: We contacted this baker when the Citrus Club (a very pretty business club in downtown) told us they could do an all vegan wedding, including the cake. This is the only baker they allow for weddings there, so I took that to mean that this baker could do a vegan cake. When I contacted them, this was my response "No I am sorry. I do not do vegan cakes." So I explained that I had been told by the Citrus Club that they could handle vegan cakes and went on with my day.