Firstly, sorry about the quality of the picture, I had to set up the cake at the venue and the lighting was not the best.

This cake has to be one of the most challenging cakes I’ve done so far, not only because it’s vegan, but the reception was in a marquee on a hot sunny afternoon. All week I’ve been dreaming about a collapsing cake!

My stress levels increased when I went to set it up in a very hot marquee and saw where it was going – on a wobbly table, which was also on a slope! I did ask the wedding co-ordination the day before if the table was on a flat surface, which it was – the dance floor, but she just omitted to tell me the whole venue slopped downwards. It was in a medieval castle over looking the sea. An absolutely fabulous setting, but not quite so great for a cake maker.

I was so worried about the cake collapsing, that I left it right till the last minute to set it up and stacked it at the venue. My delivery boy (aka my husband), helped me carry the cakes into the castle, but we nearly had a wedding disaster, as he nearly dropped one of the tiers. Something else the wedding co-ordination failed to mention was the firing of the cannon from the top of the castle, which scared the bejesus out of him. Nothing compared to what I would have done to him had he actually dropped it. Let’s just say I wasn’t the most sympathetic!

Anyway, back to the cake – the cake consists of a carrot, chocolate, vanilla and lemon sponge with white and dark dairy free chocolate ganache filling. The cakes were also covered with the ganache and then fondant. I used the Massa Ticino fondant to make the blossom flowers and the owls as I couldn’t use flower paste. It rolled really thin and was great. It’s also much firmer than other fondants so was great for the owls. The larger flowers are rice paper. They were a bit fiddly as I couldn’t use piping gel to stick them together, only water. I had a few sticky moments with them, but they turned out ok.

Another challenge was actually attaching everything to the cake. I’m so used to using royal icing, piping gel and chocolate to attach things that having to only use water and sugar glue was a challenge and I had to be super patient.

In some ways this cake took me back to the days when I started out and didn’t know how to stick things to a cake and used basic techniques, like making flowers from fondant rather than flower paste.

Not sure I’d do another vegan cake in a hurry, but now it’s over with I kind of liked the challenge and thinking outside the box on how to do everything. Hope you like the cake.

Sam. X