Fondant Fun: Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Filling

Laura contacted me and asked to be my second commissioned cake.  She was planning a dinner party in celebration of her 30th anniversary and wanted a Vegan cake for her Vegetarian husband.  They own an impressive amount of pets including a boa constrictor, a green winged Macaw, and bearded dragons to name a few.  Her Russian tortoise is one of her favorite pets and we agreed on a turtle theme.

Both John and Laura love chocolate, so since I've had experience baking the cake, it was time for me to try out some new techniques.  My Auntie Vilma is an avid baker, has a college degree in Home Economics and has been taking cake decorating courses in her retirement.  She has very generously gifted me many of her cake decorating tools and supplies in support of my hobby.  With all the tools necessary to work with fondant, I went on a search to find a Vegan fondant.

In my search, I discovered that the Satin Ice line of fondants include Vegan and Kosher varieties.  Luckily, a local cake decorating store and school carries Satin Ice exclusively.  Score!  No need to order online.  Because this was my first adventure in fondant, I decided to keep it simple making lily pads for the turtles.  But to give the cake a touch of romance, I also made my first fondant flower: a water lily.

Everything went along quite smoothly, which is not always a good sign in my experience.  When Laura came to pick up the cake, I noticed the lily pads were slipping and ruined some of the piping.  Bummer!  She was very kind about it, but I need to figure out why this happened.  When I removed the candle from my niece's cake last week, the candle came off completely clean.  Something about the chocolate frosting isn't allowing things to stick to it, which is great for saving a decorative candle, but not so much for fondant which needs to stay put.  I'm going to have to look into solving this problem.

I wish Laura and John a very happy 30th wedding anniversary, and many more to come.  Have fun celebrating with family and friends, and I hope you and your guests enjoy the cake.

Update 9/18/2011: Word of advice from my aunt: "Always glue all your decorations down with buttercream," for extra added measure.  I glued down the turtles and flowers, but not the lily pads thinking they would stick to the chocolate frosting.  Lesson learned.

Update 9/18/2011: Photos sent by Laura added below.  Text received from Laura: "There's not much left... we all agreed it was one of the best cakes ever!  Thank you!"  I'm ecstatic they enjoyed it so much.

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Filling 
(recipe from previous post)

Laura slicing the saved cake

Laura and John's guests