I have been apprehensive about this last week for months. I agreed to undertake a vegan wedding cake for an old friend I used to work with. I was nervous about doing it as this was totally out of my depth but at the same time was up for the challenge of working on something new. I had already made a chocolate vegan cake before so I understood the science behind the recipes to make it work. In fact when it came to the baking everything went beautifully. I even discovered that you can make a chocolate ganache out of dark chocolate (Whittakers 72% is vegan) and coconut cream.
What I wasn't prepared for was the fondant. The brand of fondant I usually use is not vegan so I used a different brand that people rave about so I was incredibly confident that it would be super easy. (I should have known better!) I got my cakes beautifully covered in ganache and covered in fondant and attempted to put a central dowel through the bottom two layers as the cake was travelling for an hour and a half (cake supports are incredibly important with wedding cakes). My first attempt at this did not go well and I had to take the middle layer off, peel off the fondant and re-cover it. This put me behind a good hour and a half. I have to say that there were a few choice words coming out of my mouth when I was doing this! When I finally had the whole cake covered and put together with dowel and support in, ready to be decorated, I sat back and looked at it. My heart sank. It wasn't perfect. In fact it was far from perfect. The once beautifully laid fondant was starting to buckle, air bubbles were everywhere and it just didn't look professional. My initial thought was that maybe I was being too critical. I decided to wait until my husband got home from work to get his second opinion. He confirmed my fear. It wasn't good enough.
What went wrong? I have never had this problem before so I knew it had to be the fondant. I would have to start over and it was already 7pm. It was going to be a long night. As soon as I peeled the fondant off of the cakes I realized what went wrong. The heat had caused the fondant to sweat underneath and caused airbubbles and buckling of the fondant. I decided to brush the ganache with a syrup as well as place the cake in the fridge once covered to let set. After painful cleanup of the cakes I finally had all three cakes re-assembled and put back together, ready to decorate by 11pm. My plan had been to wake up early and finish decorating but my husband was a champ and ready to bear with me for the long haul. I carried on and even got a lesson in air brushing from my husband (I did manage to get a new compressor). What I thought would be the most difficult part of the cake (the airbrushing) actually turned out the easiest! Finally at 2pm I had the cake completed and it was much better. It still was not how I usually like my other brand of fondant but it was good.......I was proud of my effort and that I had persevered and had not settled for the minimum. There is something very rewarding in fixing a mistake and making it right.
Here are some photos of the cake (100% vegan - dairy and egg free! the small cake was an additional gluten free one also vegan for a guest) as well another cake worked on this week.
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