Help! I'm vegan and he's diabetic! The Perils of WEDDING CAKE!
Here's the scoop,
Clearly, I'm vegan, and he's Type 1 diabetic, meaning he's real strict and has to have a sugar free wedding cake. (I'm guessing that if the cake has 2 grams of sugar per serving it's OK, but that's practically the same as sugar free when it comes to CAKE!) We're getting married next year and my sister (cake maker/baker/dessert specialist/cooking extrordenairre) is going to be making the wedding cake. She can find plenty of sugar free recipes, and plenty of vegan recipes, but it's apparently very difficult to do it BOTH ways. So I'm thinking that the best way to do it is split the cake up into different sections, BUT if we COULD do ONE type of cake that would be fabulous, has anyone ever had to do this, or does anyone have any suggestions?
Hmmm . . . Sugar free wedding cake? Like one made with artificial sweetener? I'm wondering about the rest of your guests and whether some of them would have a problem with the sweeteners (aspartame gives my husband the worst headache).
Okay, you didn't ask, but this is my suggestion: ditch the wedding cake. Instead, put together a large tierred cake server. And on it you could arrange cupcakes or miniature cakes with pastel frostings. You would be able to have different kinds to accommodate the both of you. It would even look sort of like a cake when you were done and it could be very beautiful.
Of course, this isn't helpful if you have your heart set on a wedding cake.
Here's my 2 cents for what it's worth :P. I agree with baypuppy, ALOT of cakes nowadays each tier is a different flavor and is one way to go, but I don't think it has to be that complicated. I say make the entire wedding cake vegan but not sugar free, what little bit of cake used for feeding each other or "cake smashing" shouldn't be detrimental to your husbands health. Typically most weddings have the wedding cake AND a Groom's cake ( which is usually nothing fancy). I say have a simple round 2 layer Groom's cake that is sugar free, but not necessarily vegan. It can be the same flavor as yours or a completely different flavor, and it would be less difficult to remember which layer of cake is what. And you wouldn't have your wedding cake hacked into on all levels for one kind or the other. Just remember to set some aside to pop in the freezer for the one year anniversary:P
Look into agave nectar as a sweetener, I've read that it's alright for diabetics. http://www.shakeoffthesugar.net/article1042.html
There is Xylitol, which may be the easiest to sub for sugar: http://www.xylitolworks.com/faqs.html You may also look into stevia, it's a very sweet herb, though there is a definite learning curve for baking with it. Worth a look though! http://www.cookingwithstevia.com/
JKL, thats a great idea about the cupcakes! I may do that at my wedding!! I also agree that aspartame is horrible... http://www.dorway.com/badnews.html
Galladriel, I hope you find a beautiful, tasty wedding cake that everyone can share and enjoy!!
Wow, be sure to thank your sister-- how nice of her to make you one! I got lucky too-- my grandma made mine.
I bet she's got some ideas about cute ways to get around the problem... the stack of cupcakes approach can be absolutely gorgeous! But a sugarfree vegan cake doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility... I'll snoop about and see if I can find anything that looks tasty.
I did a search for "sugar free vegan cake recipe" and came up with a number of them. There seems to be a lot of tendency toward spicy flavorful combos in this category, but oh my, there's tons out there-- what fun to go looking for these!
An online bookstore browse told me that there's plenty of good stuff for you out there... but goodness, if you can get it off the Web, go for it.
http://www.veganchef.com/sfcarrot.htm
http://www.vegetarianguides.co.uk/campaign/VICE.htm (scroll down)
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/04/sugar-free-coconut-chai-breakfast-cake.html
Note: since making wedding cakes is a several-day project sometimes, do please remind your sister (not that she won't know) that these cakes may keep differently than her stand-bys.
Felicitations, and I hope you find something luscious to indulge in on your special day!
I ran a sugar-free bakery and got stuff like this all the time because we also specialized in vegan baking. Just substitute fructose (not to be confused with hih-fructose corn syrup) in a vegan cake recipe that you know is good so you know you'll get the texture right. Fructose only has 1/5 of the glycemic response so it's safe for diabetics and the flavor is pretty much the same. Also try to use a whole wheat pastry flour. I have some decorating ideas for your baker if needed.
Thanks everyone! it's been super helpful!
Yes, we do use agave nectar when we cook and eat pancakes, so that is a great idea to use as a sweetener in cake. we also want a sugar free part for the other diabetics who will be attending in his family.
as for cupcakes, I am not sure on that one. I'm pretty sure that I want a cake. and I don't think that we're going to have a groomscake, just one cake. Unless he changes his mind and decides he wants one, that way it would have to be sugarfree but not vegan and i don't really care if he has a cake or not. Yeah NIX on aspartame. We were thinking on Splenda, but Stevia is also another alternative I completely forgot about. I'm going to forward all these ideas to my sister because she's been worried about it. I think i'll want one layer of vegan diabetic cake for us to feed each other (because i think I want us eating from the SAME cake (symbolically) but we definitely want to accommodate for other guests, and not have sugarfree or even vegan for them because we want it to taste good and not give them headache/sugar substitute health probs. Thanks so much! any more info is appreciated!!
I use Splenda in most of my baking as a sugar replacement, and I'm vegan as well. I also made my own vegan wedding cake. There are two problems I have encountered when replacing sugar with Splenda in my recipes: products made with Splenda tend to go bad faster, and the mouthfeel of products normally made with *tons* of sugar is sometimes off.
The first problem isn't too hard to solve. Often, bakers make parts of a wedding cake in advance, as wedding cake making is extremely time consuming -- mine took 2 solid days to make. When using Splenda, your baker will want to be sure to use a recipe which can be stored in the fridge or freezer (and not at room temp).
I usually solve the second problem by making cakes whose original recipes aren't super high in sugar and by replacing half the sugar with Splenda, half with something heavier. I would try a smaller test cake with half agave nectar and half Splenda. A recipe made that way might avoid problems caused by huge amounts of fluffy, differently-textured Splenda as well as problems caused by the heavier, wetter characteristics of agave.
When making my wedding cake, I found that trial and error was very important. I tried a few different vegan cake recipes, and some lended themselves to my particular needs better than others. Some were very hard to scale, for example, and others were easy. So, I suggest eating lots of cake over the next few months to see what works best!
Good luck and congratulations!
You might want to do some research on Splenda and then decide if you want to keep using it on a regular basis.
http://www.truthaboutsplenda.com/factvsfiction/index.html
There's a ton of research on the negative health effects....this is just one site of many that I have come across. I wouldn't touch the stuff, personally!
Hey I did that for my wedding! you could use the different colors of frosting to let you know which which is which! Blue: vegan, pink: sugar-free yellow: normal cake...
Hmmm . . . Sugar free wedding cake? Like one made with artificial sweetener? I'm wondering about the rest of your guests and whether some of them would have a problem with the sweeteners (aspartame gives my husband the worst headache).
Okay, you didn't ask, but this is my suggestion: ditch the wedding cake. Instead, put together a large tierred cake server. And on it you could arrange cupcakes or miniature cakes with pastel frostings. You would be able to have different kinds to accommodate the both of you. It would even look sort of like a cake when you were done and it could be very beautiful.
Of course, this isn't helpful if you have your heart set on a wedding cake.
I actually recently saw a picture of what I envisioned when I made that suggestion. I think the picture I saw recently was in the vegan cupcakes take over the world book. It looked beautiful.
I just got married overseas a few months ago. The tradition there is to have a very small, prettily decorated wedding cake, that is just cut by both bride and groom to honor the tradition (no tradition there of feeding each other - thank goodness! - as I've always hated that custom). Then the cake is whisked away by the waitstaff, and traditional pastries are served to the guests and the wedding party. It worked out perfectly for us. I never did taste any of our cake!
taminds I would love to talk with you about your cake recipes for weddings and decorating ideas. Please email me eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6b%61%74%74%69%65%32%30%30%31%40%79%61%68%6f%6f%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%6b%61%74%74%69%65%32%30%30%31%40%79%61%68%6f%6f%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b'))