Dairy & Egg Free Cake

Zen

I have to make a cake (or cupcakes) for a 7 year old's birthday party on Sunday and she cannot have eggs, milk, or nuts. I found a Chocolate Crazy Cake recipe that I thought I could try. Has anyone made anything like this? Do you have any tips or alternate tried-and-true recipes?

K&H

Most of the time if you use coconut milk and dairy free butter substitute you'll do fine with any cake recipe, and bananas can substitute for eggs. Try whole foods or trader joes for box mixes. We like trader joes brownie mix that you only use yogurt to make it, just use coconut yogurt. We've done it and it tastes good. Make cupcake size bites of those and frost them, all set!

aplusa

Zen- has the Trader Joe's by you opened yet?! It was promised before we moved.

I've got nothing for ya. I can barely make a cake as it is...

TxMoms2B

I made that for my son's first birthday and made them as cupcakes for valentines day. They taste pretty good and turned out well. We always knew it as wacky cakes.

eemabird

Vegan mom of two vegan kiddos here. I've made the crazy/wacky cakes before and they are pretty good. IMO, you have to go chocolate and heavy on the chocolate for then to have real flavor though.

My rule for vegan baking is to use a tried and true non-vegan recipe and make simple vegan substitutes--soy or almond milk for dairy milk (I've never tried coconut but hear folks who love coconut like it and folks who don't really don't), non-dairy margarine for butter, etc. For eggs, I use Ener-g Egg Replacer (available at WHole Foods and in natural food sections of some regular grocers) for baking. It's a powder that you mix with water.

A word about non-dairy margarine: if you can find Fleishman's Regular Unsalted margarine, it'll work better for baking and making frosting than Earth Balance, but it's not as good for you and EB will certainly work (get the sticks not the tub). Another source for non-dairy margarine is a kosher grocery store. Ask for parve margarine. Mother's is a popular brand.

Whatever you do, don't try some super crunchy granola super vegan recipe that calls for silken tofu and prunes your first time out. Keep it simple. I'd go for the crazy/wacky cake or a very classic chocolate or vanilla cake. I use two cake recipes religiously; they're from Real Simple magazine, a story I clipped called something like "the only cake story you'll ever need."

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me.

eemabird

PS If the kosher section of your local grocery store carries Manischewitz chocolate cake mix, it will work with the egg replacer & water. It's made to be nondairy since observant Jews don't mix meat & dairy products in the same meal.

If you can do brownies instead of cake, any brownie mix that has a the O-U kosher sign (it's a U inside a circle) is non-dairy and I've had success using these with the egg replacer as well. Duncan Hines makes some. You can always add frosting and sprinkles.

Also, I'm not a big fan of commercial canned frosting but many varieties are non-dairy. Again, look for the U inside the circle. As long as it doesnt have a D next to it or say "dairy", it's non-dairy. It can say "pareve" or "parve" (kosher term for not-meat/non-dairy).

Sorry if this is information overload.

merilung

I made vegan cakes and cupcakes for YEARS. Vegan cake awesome, better than regular cake! I've never made this recipe - I would trust any recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, like THIS one: http://www.chow.com/recipes/10794-basic-vegan-chocolate-cupcake

Zen

Thank you everyone for the info -- I'll let you know how it comes out!

PS - Trader Joe's is here somewhere locally but I've never visited

horton

Judah's allergic to milk, eggs, and peanuts. I've made crazy cakes many times for various birthdays since his diagnosis. I agree that chocolate is definitely the way to go with that. I've also made plenty of cakes from standard box mixes (obviously you have to check the label since some mixes contain milk right in the mix itself). I use earth balance sticks for the butter, almond milk for milk (though soy would be fine too), and my egg substitute depends on the cake flavor. For chocolate cake, I use canned pumpkin or unsweetened applesauce. For other flavors I use applesauce or flax meal mixed with water. I own the ener-g stuff but have never used it because my other egg substitutes have always worked well. (I use the flax meal to make homemade pancakes and applesauce to make vegan donuts, etc).

scifimom

One little tip to add. I read and have found that for baking, use the soy-free margarine. Earth Balance has a soy-free variety. The soy in the margarine can make a funny taste when baked.

Zen

It worked! I used cupcake tins so no butters were needed. Taking eemabird's advice, I doubled the cocoa called for in the recipe. I may experiment next time and use soy milk in place of water. But as is, the cupcakes were most definitely a hit with all!

I was very happy because this was my first time ever making a cake from scratch

... I just re-read the recipe and realized I forgot the salt (lol)!