CAN A "REAL" BIRTHDAY CAKE BE VEGAN?

In my contacts as a founder of the Vermont Vegetarian Society, I find that a big concern of people who either are vegans or are considering becoming vegans is what to do about family celebrations. The solution I propose is certainly not acceptable to all, but it has worked well for me. It is one way out of the dilemma.

You have adopted a vegan diet and are enjoying your kinder, gentler lifestyle. That is, until the day that little Janey comes home and announces that she wants a "real" cake for her birthday party with her fourth-grade friends. You and she have already settled on a memo of Tofu Pups, potato chips and apple cider. What to do about the cake?

You could take the absolutist position: "We don’t eat cakes in our house. They are unhealthy - too sweet, too much fat." The result? A crying child, who may forever associate vegetarianism with deprivation. You could offer to bake a "health-food" cake, full of whole wheat flour, tofu and molasses, maybe with dried fruits and nuts. Again, Janey cries. "The other kids will think it’s yukky! I want a real birthday cake." You reach for your Betty Crocker Cookbook. Is this an appropriate time to forget about vegan principles and get out the butter, eggs and milk?

If we are just talking nutrition, maybe yet. Dr. John McDougall (a vegetarian medical lecturer) assures us that it is eating royally three times a day which does us in, not the rare feast. However, the issue of animal exploitation is not so simple to resolve. Birthday or not, when we buy eggs and dairy products we are supporting the slaughter and suffering which inevitably accompany these animal industries. We do not give a good message to Janey if we ignore cruelty for our (and her) convenience and comfort.

There is another alternative. We can make a sweet, rich, unhealthy but real birthday cake using all vegan ingredients. I have made several of these cakes for family birthday celebrations. In every case, the cakes were enthusiastically eaten by militant non-vegetarians. None suspected the cakes were vegan until I told them.

If you had a favorite "butter cake" recipe in your pre-vegan days, you can probably adapt that. Standard chocolate cakes, yellow cakes, spice cakes and so forth lend themselves well to a vegan version.

The non-vegan ingredients in such cakes are usually butter, eggs and milk. White flour may be a nutritional loser, but it is not an animal product. White sugar is a close call. It is normally considered vegan, but actually it is often whitened in a process that uses animal bones. Try using other sweeteners such as rice syrup. Use vegan soy margarine in place of shortening or butter, soy milk in place of dairy, milk and Ener-G Egg Replacer (available in natural foods stores) for eggs.

If your recipe calls for buttermilk, just put one tablespoon of vinegar in your measuring cup and add soy milk as required. Mix the Ener-G Egg Replacer with water as directed on the box, according to the number of eggs in the cake recipe. If I am making a traditional cake, where the margarine and sugar are creamed first, I add the mixed Ener-G with the last addition of liquid (while adding the flour and liquid near the end of mixing.) IF the recipe is a Quick-Mix (not cake mix) cake, I add the Ener-G Egg Replacer whenever the recipe says to add the eggs. I usually bake a two-layer cake in 8-inch pans, in order to have higher layers. For frosting, I use a standard buttercream (confectioners sugar) recipe, substituting soy margarine and soy milk for the animal ingredients.

Doubtless, some will be horrified at the notion of serving such a nutritional disaster to one’s loved family and guests. We need to remember that no one course of action is perfect for everybody. If you have a family of committed vegetarians, everybody may actually prefer a healthy cake or no cake at all. If, however, you are dealing with a reluctant child (or grow-up child) to whom "birthday" means cake and "cake" means only one thing upholding your pristine principles may lead to resentment and anger. I find it life-affirming that I can produce and unmistakable real birthday cake without contributing to the exploitation of farm animals.

On the following page are two recipes I have used successfully. If you cannot tolerate using white flour, you could probably substitute whole wheat pastry flour for some of the white flour. I have not tried this, and so cannot guarantee the results.