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Vegan Victoria Sponge Cake using Barley Flour

Madhuram — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:37:20 +0000

Course 3 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating Series covers some more designing with buttercream icing, royal icing and fondant. I was eagerly waiting for this course thinking that dealing with fondant would be easier than decorating with the other icings. I couldn’t have been any wronger. Fondant is very high maintenance and at least it was very difficult for me to handle. It’s going to take a lot of practice for me before I can decorate something decent. Taste wise too, I prefer buttercream icing to fondant.

The place where I attended the courses is not offering the 4th part of the course, Fondant and Gum Paste. So I think this is it for me right now. I think I will have to wait until next summer to take the 4th course.

The following were covered in Course 3:

Buttercream Icing

Royal Icing

Fondant

For everything about how to decorate with Fondant check here for exhaustive details.

Coming to the cake recipe which I used for the class, I found it on the box of Ener-G Egg Replacer. It’s a recipe for an egg free Victoria Sponge Cake. I made 2 changes to the original recipe. Used barley flour instead of all purpose flour and canola oil instead of vegetable shortening.

Ingredients & Procedure

Whole Barley Flour 2 cups

Light Brown Sugar 1 cup

Baking Powder 3 teaspoons

EnerG Egg Replacer 1 teaspoon

Canola Oil 1/4 cup

Warm Water 1 and 1/3 cups

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Yield: One 8-inch cake

1 Preheat the oven to 375F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square/round pan with parchment paper and grease it with non stick cooking spray.

2 In a large bowl sift the barley flour and mix together the remaining dry ingredients.

3 Add the oil and mix well. Add the water and flavor and mix for another 2 minutes.

4 Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5 Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Then remove the parchment paper from the sides of the pan and slowly invert the pan to remove the cake. Transfer the cake to the wire rack and let it cool completely before frosting.

Taste & My Notes The original recipe had used 2 cups of all purpose flour which I substituted with whole barley flour. So the cake was not spongy as the name implies. It was quite dense. Maybe I should I have added another teaspoon of baking powder. Vinegar would do the trick too but I’m not for it in this particular recipe. Since I needed a layer cake, for the second layer I tried another similar recipe but added 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and felt that the flavor of vinegar was over powering. You can see in the 2nd picture that the first layer is reddish in color than the bottom layer, it’s because of the apple cider vinegar. It was airy but I prefer the dense cake minus the vinegar smell/taste. Maybe just 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar should be fine or adding some almond extract might reduce the after taste. This is again a guess only.

The sweetness was right. If you are going to frost the cake, the quantity of sugar in the recipe is okay otherwise I think adding another 2-3 tablespoons of sugar should be fine for those with sweet tooth.

Do I recommend baking this cake? Well it depends on the individual taste. In our family we are trying to include more whole grains and in general to eat more healthy. So we don’t mind the denseness. Especially me baking quite often I cannot be using all purpose flour so frequently. I’m not lying when I tell that everybody in my family liked this cake. I think our taste buds have accustomed to the texture and flavor of whole grains.

It’s not all times that whole grain flours give perfect results while baking. So if you want to use whole barley flour and also want a cake to suit everyone’s taste buds I would suggest you to bake the vegan barley chocolate cake instead of this sponge cake.

If you are looking for a vegan sponge cake recipe to bake for some occasion like a birthday, anniversary etc I would suggest you to try the exact same recipe but with all purpose flour as mentioned in the original recipe. I too am going to try it and will post my findings here when I’m done.

This vegan barley sponge cake recipe goes to my Whole Grain (Eggless) Baking Event – Barley.

Vegan Barley Flour Chocolate Cake & Royal Icing Decorations

Madhuram — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:22:25 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Course 2 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating series concentrates more on flowers and especially flowers made with royal icing. What is different about royal icing? Royal icing does not use any fat (butter/shortening). It’s just a combination of confectioner’s sugar, meringue powder and water. Unlike buttercream icing, royal icing creates hard-drying and long lasting decorations. This means you can make these decorations ahead of time (even months ahead) and simply place them on your cake. Another interesting feature of royal icing decorations is that it will not soften or crumble when stored properly. It should not be kept in bright light, as colors can fade. Just like buttercream icing, consistency of royal icing is very important. Another item used in royal icing decorations is the Color Flow mix. This again has egg whites posing a problem to vegetarians and vegans.

I was searching the net for egg free royal icing recipes and spotted few but was not sure how it would work. One of my classmates mentioned that her vegetarian friend used cream of tartar to replace the meringue powder. I couldn’t decide which one to choose. Luckily I found a vegan royal icing mix in the store (Bulk Barn) I take the course. It’s just icing sugar and soy protein and I had to simply add a 1/4 cup of water and beat it well. It’s from a company called Liberty Sugar Decorations Inc. You can find such mixes online too. I have not tried this brand. The brand of royal icing mix I bought worked very well. The roses I made were as good as the ones made by others. I also omitted the Color Flow mix while filling few decorations and that turned out good too.

Is royal icing better or buttercream icing? Since royal icing hardens it cannot be used to frost on cakes, even though it is edible. It is used as a glue while making gingerbread houses, decorated on cookies and for other long lasting decorations. Taste-wise buttercream icing gets my vote, but if you want to have a spectacular visual presentation royal icing is good. I didn’t like the taste of the flowers I made, it is just hardened sugar. Of course children can’t get enough of this. Another important thing to note is royal icing is high maintenance. The tips, decorating bags, the bowl in which you prepare the icing, the mixers and anything that comes in contact with royal icing has to be very clean and grease free. There is no excuse for this at all, because even the slightest amount of grease will affect the texture of the royal icing and you won’t be successful. So it is advised to have separate set of tips, containers etc for preparing royal icing. If you use the same stuff you use for buttercream icing and don’t clean it well the fat from this icing will affect the royal icing. So use a dishwasher and my instructor also suggested cleaning the tips, etc with vinegar before using it with royal icing.

We learned a lot of cool floral decorations in Course 2 but I did not get everything right. It requires a lot of practice. The following is the list of things we covered:

Using Buttercream:

Using Royal Icing:

Color Flow Decorations
Apple Blossoms
Violet
Victorian Rose: Similar to the buttercream icing roses, but you would be using royal icing instead. Also tips 97 (right handed) or 103 (left handed) is used instead of 104.
Daisy
Daffodil
Pansy
Primrose

Ingredients

Whole Barley flour 1 and 1/2 cups

Sugar 3/4 cup

Salt 1/2 teaspoon

Baking Soda 1 teaspoon

Unsweetened Cocoa Powder 1/4 cup

Vanilla Extract 1 and 1/2 teaspoons

Canola Oil 1/3 cup

Apple Cider Vinegar 1 tablespoon

Cold Water 1 cup

Yield: One 8 inch cake.

Procedure 1 Preheat the oven at 350F/180C for 15 minutes. Grease the pan lightly with non-stick cooking spray and line the bottom and sides of the pan with parchment paper.

2 Sift the barley flour and stir together rest of the dry ingredients (sugar to cocoa powder) and create a well in the center.

3 To the well add all the wet ingredients one by one. Mix until just combined. Don’t over mix. It’s OK to have some lumps.

4 Pour the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Mine was done by 27 minutes. If baking cupcakes, check around 13-15th minute.

5 Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let it cool for 15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper on the sides of the pan and slowly invert the pan on a plate and the cake comes out perfect without sticking to the pan.

6 Cool completely before frosting.

Taste I was crossing my fingers while the cake was baking. Though I did see a couple of recipes for chocolate cake using barley flour, I was not sure how this one will bake because I was not using eggs unlike the other recipes. I have read that barley flour is not as glutenous as all purpose flour or whole wheat flour. So I was absolutely surprised to see the cake because it had rose perfectly.

I couldn’t wait to taste the cake. Once I tasted the cake I was literally jumping in joy because it was very good. It didn’t smell raw or it did not taste bitter or it did not have the grittiness of whole wheat flour. Of course it did not replicate the taste of all purpose flour but it was definitely good and way better than using whole wheat flour. So I think those who don’t like the taste of whole wheat flour in baked goods can start experimenting with whole barley flour instead. I felt the cake was not sweet enough when I tasted it a couple of hours after baking but from the next day onwards I did not feel that. The sweetness was just right.

My Notes 1 I had to bake 2 layers of cake for my class. Since I was not sure if the cake would come out well using barley flour, I tried just one layer first. I simply stirred together the dry ingredients and proceeded as mentioned in the recipe. The cake rose beautifully just like the one I baked with all purpose flour. I was able to see some unprocessed husks of the barley. So while baking the next layer I sifted the barley flour. I don’t think we will be losing nutrition because of this, since the residue on the sieve was very less.

This barley flour vegan chocolate cake goes to my Whole Grains Baking Event – Barley.

Eggless Whole Wheat Layer Cake

Madhuram — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:15:58 +0000

Are you like me, crazy about a cookbook? If you are interested in baking, want to include whole grains while doing so and also want the baked goods to be very tasty, then you will have to check King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking book and I’m sure you will become a fan like me. It is not just a book with recipes but talks in detail about the different types of whole grain flours, their characteristics and how to use them effectively so the result is very delicious baked goods. It’s a 600 pages cookbook, so you can understand the in-depth coverage of the subject matter. You have abundant choice with recipes for breakfast, quick breads, yeast breads, cookies, cakes, desserts etc. It’s like any other baking book when it comes to the huge collection of baking recipes but what makes it the best is that all these recipes are made with a variety of whole grain flours.

I had to bake a layer cake for for the final class of Course 1 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating series. I decided to go with one of the cake recipes in the King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking book. Since I’m on the look out for a good egg free white cake recipe, I decided to try the butter cake recipe using whole wheat pastry flour. I made a couple of changes to that recipe to make it egg free and healthy.

Is this cake really healthy? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, because I have used trans fat free non hydrogenated margarine instead of butter in the original recipe, thereby reducing the fat and eliminating cholesterol. No, because I have frosted the cake and it is made with shortening. So if you really want a healthy cake either avoid frosting or make a simple vegan frosting or a low fat frosting.

We practiced the following in the final class:

Roses (Please watch the video)
Sweet Peas
Bows
Leaves
Vines

Ingredients

Whole Wheat Pastry Flour 2 and 1/4 cups

All Purpose Flour 1 cup

Baking Powder 2 teaspoons

Baking Soda 1/2 teaspoon

Soft Tub Margarine 1 cup

Granulated Sugar 3/4 cup

Salt 1 teaspoon

Unsweetened Applesauce 1 cup

Apple Cider Vinegar 1/2 tablespoon

Vanilla Extract 2 teaspoons

Plain Yogurt, low fat 1 cup

Yield: Two 8-inch round layer cakes or One 9×13 inch pan.

Procedure1 Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 8-inch round pans or line with parchment paper. Nowadays I prefer lining the pan with parchment paper in the bottom as well as on the sides. The cake comes out of the pan perfectly each and every time.

2 Whisk together the flours, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl.

3 Cream together the margarine, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

4 Add 1/4 cup of applesauce at a time, beating well after each addition and scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl once or twice. It curdles but don’t worry.

5 Add 1/3rd of the flour mixture, mixing until incorporated.

6 Measure 1 cup of yogurt in a liquid measuring mug. To that add the vanilla and vinegar and whisk together well.

7 Add half of this mixture to the large bowl, again beating until the mixture is very fluffy. Meanwhile scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl also.

8 Then add another 1/3rd of the flour and beat well. Next add the remaining yogurt mixture, then the remaining 1/3rd cup of flour, mixing well after each addition. Stop once or twice to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.

9 Pour the batter into the prepared pans. (It was not watery but more in a semi solid state). Bake the cake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Mine was done in about 32 minutes. The cake was in golden brown color and started to pull from the sides of the pan. If you are baking a 9×13 inch cake the baking time will vary, so do the toothpick test to find if the cake is done.

10 Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan. Then pull out the parchment paper from the side of the pan and invert the pan and the cake falls without sticking to the pan. Remove the parchment paper sticking to the bottom of the cake and transfer it to a cooling rack. The cake has to cool completely before frosting.

Taste In our house we have got used to whole wheat pastry flour in baked goods so much that we hardly notice any difference in taste or texture. It takes quite sometime to get accustomed to that taste, especially if you are using traditional whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour. Together with the frosting the cake was awesome and we did not miss the white flour at all. It was not only us but I gave the cake to a couple of people and all of them loved it.

My Notes1 I used Fleischman’s no salt added soft tub margarine instead of butter.

2 If you don’t find whole wheat pastry flour then use equal portion of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. If you are using traditional whole wheat flour add 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice to reduce the bitterness and raw smell/taste. This is the tip given in the book, which I have not tried so far.

Vegan White Cake

Madhuram — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:21:55 +0000

I was looking for a good white cake recipe to bake for my husband’s birthday. I saw a recipe for vegan white cake in The Vegan Family Cookbook by Chef Brian P. McCarthy. Actually that book has a lot of interesting recipes, especially vegan baking recipes and I literally want to try each one of them. Wish I had the time for it. So do look for that book in your local library.

For that week’s class I had to take 8 cupcakes. So I used the recipe to bake one 8-inch cake for my husband’s birthday and the remaining batter was exactly enough for 8 cupcakes. We practiced with tips 3, 12, 21, 67 and 2D in the 3rd class. Check the following links to see what decorations are possible with these tips.

Ingredients

Cake Flour 3 cups

Baking Powder 2 teaspoon

Salt 1/2 teaspoon

Egg Replacer Powder (EnerG) 2 teaspoons

Water, lukewarm 1/4 cup

Unsweetened Soy Milk 1 and 1/2 cups

Margarine 1/2 cup

Sugar 1 and 1/3 cups

Vanilla Extract 1 tablespoon

Yield: One 8-inch cake and 8 regular size cupcakes or two 8-inch cake rounds or one 9×13-inch cake

Procedure1 Preheat oven to 350F. Oil and flour cake pans. I used one 8-inch round pan and baked the remaining batter in a muffin tin for cupcakes. Got 6 of them.

2 In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3 In a blender/food processor blend together the warm water and EnerG and blend it until it’s frothy. To this add the soy milk and blend it for another 30 seconds and set it aside.

4 In another bowl beat the margarine with an electric mixer until softened. Add sugar and vanilla to the margarine and cream together thoroughly.

5 Add 1/2 of the soy milk mixture to the margarine/sugar mixture and beat for a minute.

6 Add 1/2 of the flour to the margarine and beat for a minute.

7 Now add the remaining soy milk mixture and flour mixture alternately and beat together for a minute after each addition.

8 Pour the cake batter into prepared pans.

9 Bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

10 Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan to wire cooling rack.

TasteThis cake was good, but I think I felt the presence of soy milk when I ate the cake without the icing. Luckily my husband and others didn’t feel it. So next time I’ll be trying some other non-dairy milk instead. It did have a nice texture, especially the cupcakes. Together with the frosting it tasted no different than any other cake.

My Notes1 I used sweetened soy beverage so I reduced the quantity of sugar to 1 cup and it was perfect because it also got the sweetness from the frosting.

2 For the margarine, I used Fleischman’s No Salt Added soft tub margarine.

3 If you don’t have cake flour it’s ok. Instead use this substitute which is widely used. Place 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a 1 cup measuring cup and then fill the rest (until the top of the cup) with all purpose flour
and level it off.

Eggless Vanilla Cake and Cake Decorating Tips

Madhuram — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:44:14 +0000

This is the picture of the first cake I decorated in Course 1 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating Courses. You can see that I need a lot of practice, but I’m sure that it will also give you (beginners) the confidence that it’s easy and you can definitely do it. I have been receiving a couple of mails since my earlier post on cake decoration, requesting me to update more information on how-to’s. The hardest part for me now is to give all the necessary information in an organized manner to the followers of this series. I feel that compiling this series is going to be difficult than actually taking the course and decorating the cakes.

I would say that the easiest thing to do is to enroll for the classes if it’s nearby your place and if you have the time for it. It’s a very nice experience. If not, check www.wilton.com. They have a lot of pictures, videos and tips etc. The only drawback is it’s a lot of information to take and without direction it’s difficult to follow. So I’ll provide some links here, following the course’s pattern. So it would be like you are taking an online class.

What happens in the first day of Course 1? A student manual is handed over to all the students. It has the recipe for Buttercream Icing, information about the tools you will be using, the designs you will be working on in the 1st course and a lot of other stuff. This book is available only for those who are attending the class. Then instructor gives general tips about baking a cake, how to level it, torte it, fill it and frost it. She brings a cake and shows you how it is done. I’m going to do a pictorial post on this topic shortly. Until then watch this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So you will not be requiring any materials for the first class, but you will be needing a whole bunch of stuff from the second class onwards. Now is the time for decision making. What are you going to buy? This purely depends on the level of interest you have. Are you going to bake and decorate just 3 cakes in a year or are you thinking of making it a career. If you fall in the first category or cannot decide which, I would suggest you to buy Wilton’s Course 1 Student Cake Decorating Kit available in Michael’s and other cake decorating supplies stores. It will have the basic tools you would be requiring to use in Course 1. If you are very serious about cake decorating then go for the 101 Piece Tool Caddy Collection. Actually I bought the set thinking that it will be having the materials for course 2 too, but it didn’t. So I had to buy Course 2 kit separately. So I think it’s advisable to get the appropriate course kit as and when you are enrolling. Empty tool caddies are available too. So later you can buy that and fill it up with materials you got with the kits.

The Course 1 kit comes with a flower nail no.7, tip brush, standard couplers (2), decorator brush, featherweight decorating bags (2), disposable decorating bag (1), tips 3, 12, 16, 21, 104, 67 and 2D, a small straight spatula and a practice board set.

Now that you have decided what to buy, you would have to bake a cake, torte it, fill it and frost it and take it to the 2nd class. Recipe for eggless buttercream icing. You would be practicing with tips 16, 3 and 2010. Tip 2010 is not included in the kit, so you would have to buy it. In this rainbow cake I have used only tip 16 for the stars (in the rainbow) as well as the clouds.

Check this video to know how to fill a decorating bag

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch the following video to see how to work with tip 16 to make stars

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check here to see how to use tip 16 to make clouds.

Check here to see how to transfer the rainbow pattern on the cake.

Medium consistency icing is used for both the stars and clouds. If you decide to get the tips alone, practice on a vegetable cutting board or plastic sheet or an inverted cake pan. Tips 3 and 12 are also used apart from tip 16 in the first class. Check the following links to start using those tips.

Dots
Outline
Print Writing
Script Writing
Rose Base

Now shall we go to the recipe for eggless vanilla cake I have used here? I think that I have found 2 perfect eggless chocolate cake recipes. One is the eggless chocolate cake with silken tofu and the other one is the vegan chocolate cake using vinegar. I hadn’t tried my hands on egg free vanilla/white cake. Now I’m in the search of a perfect recipe for that too. (So if anyone has such a recipe please let me know). Since I was short on time, I decided to bake a vanilla cake using cake mix. I bought an organic cake mix because we can definitely identify all the ingredients in the list unlike the other cake mixes which has a lot of unidentifiable chemical names and sometimes animal fat too. I had a lot of sour yogurt in the fridge, so I used it as egg substitute. I used 3/4th cup of yogurt in place of 3 large eggs.

Ingredients

Organic Vanilla Cake Mix 1 pack (I used Organics Biologique 460g

Milk 1/2 cup

Yogurt 3/4 cup

Vegetable Oil 2/3 cup

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Yield: One 8-inch cake and 6 regular size cupcakes.

Procedure1 Preheat oven to 350F/180C for metal pans and 325F for dark non-stick pans. Line an 8-inch cake pan and a muffin tin with parchment paper and paper liners.

2 In a large bowl blend cake mix, yogurt, milk and oil at low speed until moistened.

3 Beat at medium-high speed for 2 minutes. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl. Continue beating at medium-high speed for 2 minutes. Pour batter into the prepared pans.

4 Bake according to the instructions give in the pack. Mine was done in 25 minutes. The cupcakes even sooner. Cake is one when toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

5 Cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely before frosting.

Taste The cake came out very good but I felt that it was very sweet. It had a nice airy texture. Since the cake was very sweet, I reduced the quantity of sugar while preparing the buttercream icing. The cake was perfect together with the icing.

Has my search ended for the best egg free vanilla cake? No. This cake was good, especially very easy to put together and simple procedure. Still, I’m going to keep looking.

Wilton’s Cake Decorating Course and Vegan Buttercream Icing Recipe

Madhuram — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:28:18 +0000

I have finally completed the Course 1 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating Courses. It was fun and interesting. It covers the basics of cake decorating. One can get the hang of various tools and materials needed for decorating a cake after completing this course. What seems impossible at first looks quite easy after taking the class. I decorated 3 cakes during the 1st course. They were not perfect but at least I’m getting better than simply slathering frosting unevenly on my cakes. Like any other art, cake decorating too requires a lot of passion, patience and practice. So if you are patient enough and can devote some quality time to practice you can master it in no time.

Usually each course has 4 classes, with one class per week. So in a month you will be completing 1 course. Having 1 class per week also gives ample time for you to practice and clear the doubts you have when you go for the next class. Depending on the instructor you can take a cake or a cake dummy to the class. I hear that some instructors are strict and ask you to get the cake. Mine was flexible so quite a few in my class got the cake dummy. I didn’t know that such a thing existed, so I baked a cake. It’s a model cake made with styrofoam available in various shapes (I have seen square and circle) and sizes. So you can practice on it, after you are done wipe the icing with a damp sponge and reuse it. Cake dummy is available in Michaels and other cake decorating supplies stores. If you live in Canada, locate a Bulk Barn near you and forget Michaels. You can get almost all Wilton cake decorating, candy making supplies at cheaper prices than Michael’s. They even rent character cake pan sets.

Another interesting tip which I found here, is using a cake pan upside down instead of buying the cake dummies. That’s really awesome. It’s very easy to use, already in the shape and size of the cake you will be baking, easy to clean and you can reuse it countless number of times.

Assuming that you can bake a decent cake the next step is preparing the icing. The course book has the recipe for the Buttercream Icing used in the class. The recipe calls for meringue powder, which is a combination of egg whites, cream of tartar and other unrecognizable chemicals. Now this was the first hurdle for me. I was in such a dilemma whether to use that powder or not. I have eaten store bought cakes and will also be eating it in the future and I don’t mind the eggs. Bringing eggs home and cooking with it, is my phobia. By getting this powder I was not bringing actual eggs but I did not want to post here even the pictures of the cakes decorated with that icing. When I asked my instructor about a substitute for the meringue powder, she felt sorry that she did not have an answer. I was thinking maybe I should use equal amount of EnerG Egg Replacer powder itself. Then I discovered Wilton’s Buttercream Icing Mix. The instructions read that I just had to add water and butter/margarine to it and beat it with a mixer. When I read the ingredients, I was happy that nothing related to eggs was mentioned. So I happily picked it. After coming home I was scanning the list again and found mono-glycerides. I have read earlier that unless and otherwise it is clearly specified vegetable derived mono-glycerides, all other glycerides are derived from animals. So I couldn’t use that and returned it. Many omnivores and even some vegetarians may be thinking what’s the big deal. In this day and age of packaged and processed food one can’t be really sure about what one is eating and the source. But what to do I’m one among the million quirky vegetarians!

The day for the 2nd class was nearing and I was supposed to take 3 cups of icing and here I was still wondering what to do. I thought maybe I should simply follow the recipe, prepare it, learn the decorating techniques and once I’m sort of good, I can start experimenting with a substitute for the meringue powder. But I need not have worried after all in this era of Google serving information at your finger tips. A couple of recipe sites had Wilton’s Buttercream Icing without the egg powder and the reviews were good too, telling that it had the consistency perfect for decorating. It was the exact same recipe given in the course book but minus the meringue powder. So I too decided to do the same and kept my fingers crossed. To my surprise my instructor while testing each of our icing with some designs told me that mine was perfect for decorating and she couldn’t believe when I told her that I did not add the meringue powder. So girls, one problem solved. (There is another one in the 2nd course too! Yes I enrolled for it and the 1st class is already over. Hope I will be able to find a solution for the Royal Icing too). What a relief!

Now that we have found an egg free buttercream icing recipe, what to do next? We would be requiring icing in 3 consistencies. Stiff, Medium and Thin. Stiff consistency icing is used to make those gorgeous roses and other flowers and objects you see on the cakes. Medium consistency is used to make borders and related designs. Thin consistency is for writing on the cake and frosting the cake. So while preparing the icing, you usually start with stiff, then add some water to get medium consistency and some more water to get thin consistency. One should be careful while adding water, it’s usually 1 or 2 tablespoons to the maximum. Again any mistake done is not irreparable, you can always add some confectioner’s sugar or water to get the desired consistency.

Cake decorating is a massive topic and I’m a beginner. So I will try my best to cover important things here so that those who are interested and don’t know where to start can get some sort of an idea of how to go about it. If you feel that I have overlooked something or have any questions/clarifications please feel free to leave your comments here or email me and I’ll keep updating the answers in the subsequent posts.

Ingredients

Vegetable Shortening 1 cup

Wilton’s Clear Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Wilton’s No Color Butter Flavor (optional) 1 teaspoon

Confectioner’s/Icing Sugar 4 cups

Salt (optional) a pinch

Milk/Water (as required) approx. 2 tablespoons

Yield: 3 cups stiff consistency icing

Procedure1 In a bowl, add the shortening, vanilla and butter flavoring and 2 tablespoons of water. Cream until light and fluffy.

2 Add sugar one cup at a time and beat after each addition, until all the ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together.

3 Blend an additional minute or so, until creamy. This produces 3 cups of stiff consistency icing.

4 For medium consistency, add 1 teaspoon of water to each cup of stiff consistency icing. For thin consistency, add 2 teaspoons of water for each cup of stiff consistency icing.

Taste Even though the name of the icing is Buttercream, we don’t actually use butter. Instead we use solid white shortening. That gives the pure white color (so when you decide to mix colors you can get better shades) and also the correct structure for the designs. To keep the icing at it’s whitest we use the Wilton’s clear Vanilla Extract and no color Butter Flavoring. The usual vanilla extra is in dark brown color and when it’s added it will tint the shortening and the icing will not be in the purest white.

I saw a couple of recipes, where only butter is used or half butter and half shortening is used, but I have tried it only with shortening. As I have mentioned earlier I didn’t want to experiment too much at this initial stage of learning. I read quite a lot of reviews, that some people don’t like the greasy after taste that shortening gives and so they used butter instead. I felt that when the icing is consumed together with the cake you don’t feel the greasiness but you definitely feel it when you eat the icing alone. Also the vessels get very greasy and it’s messy to do the dishes in the sink. Better use the dishwasher. The taste is real good though, just like the bakery ones. I actually was experimenting with white cake recipes. So for the 3 cakes I baked during the course I tried 3 different recipes and felt that the icing really covers up even if the cake is not that good. Can you believe that this frosting is actually vegan?

My Notes1 You could use Butter Flavor All Vegetable Shortening. In that case you can omit the Wilton’s Butter Flavoring. I couldn’t find butter flavored shortening so I had to use the usual one and hence I added 1 teaspoon of butter flavoring. If using the extra teaspoon of butter flavoring, go slow while adding the water. Also look for trans fat free shortening. I was not able to find it and used the regular one and each serving has 0.3gm trans fat.

2 Icing consistency is key while decorating a cake. But don’t worry if you don’t get it right because fixing it is quite easy. If the icing is very thin add some icing sugar until yo get the required stiffness. If it’s too stiff add water (drop by drop) to dilute it.

3 Milk or water can be used while preparing the frosting but I read elsewhere that using water is better.

4 Icing keeps good for 2 weeks when stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

5 The Wilton cake decorating course book which was supplied to us during the class, has a lot of useful information, tips and tricks organized in a neat manner. You can also find this in their site. The information in the website is spread all over, so I’ll give some important links in the next section.

Other Information Explore Wilton’s website for a lot of information about cake decorating. It’s very extensive. To help beginners I’m putting out a list of useful links here.

1 Wilton Course Details

2 Local Wilton Classes

3 Wilton’s Cake Decorating 101

4 Cake Decorating Accessories

5 Golda’s Kitchen
(An excellent retail and on-line baking/cake decorating supplies store based in Canada. They ship overseas too.)

6 Bulk Barn (Another amazing store in Canada with tons of cake decorating supplies and some locations offer the Wilton Classes too. You can usually find this store in big malls.)

7 Baking 911(Has extensive details on decorating cakes, cookies and more, with lot of tips and tricks)

8 Michael’s 40% off coupon (If you live in Canada, check this out. You can print this coupon and take it to the store and get 40% off on any one item. It’s really a huge money saver when you are buying a big ticket item like a professional cake decorating tool set. I got a $200 dollar set for $100 because they had a 50% off special that week.