No Sugar, No Problem?

I've heard other bakers advise that having a niche is best when it comes to the types of orders we take on. Me being me, I find it hard to say no to anything and I love a challenge. So when I received a request for a dairy free, low sugar and nut free cake, no chocolate for a one year old's birthday I had quite the confectionery conundrum on my hands.

Friend Google and actual friend Sarah, one of my London-based besties, proved quite the source of recipe inspo and I finally settled on a carrot cake recipe by Nora Cooks. It happened to be vegan which helped with the dairy free element but not so much the sugar; I substituted the brown and white sugars for Coconut Sugar and the almond milk for soya milk and omitted the walnuts.

The cake baked in the most perfectly flat layers. It was actually a really enjoyable experience to bake without eggs and butter - I guess it's true, a change is as good as a rest!

The Buttercream...

Okay so I had my low sugar, dairy and nut free cake layers ready to go... but what about the buttercream? I had only ever made dairy free icing once before using Nuttelex, which is a dairy free margarine spread. On that occasion I had made American buttercream (ABC) which typically consists of Icing (powdered) sugar, butter and milk and it worked perfectly. However with this current order I wanted to attempt a dairy free Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) as it incorporates a lot less sugar. Oh how I wish I'd thought that through (insert d'oh emoji).

So in I went with my Nuttelex and watched as my beautiful silky smooth meringue transformed into a soupy, bitty horrid consistency as I attempted to smoothe it onto the cake. Ugh, no! Okay reboot reboot. I then did what I should have done at the start and Googled vegan butter options. Most were only available in stores miles away but I finally found one that not only looked like it would do the job but was also available at my local supermarket! Win!

Flora plant based butter for the win!! However having wasted 4 eggs in the aforementioned failed IMBC I couldn't face attempting it again despite my sturdier looking replacement (note: I have no doubt this would work fine as a dairy free replacement in a meringue based buttercream) and wanted a more stable buttercream so I asked the client if she'd be okay with me using ABC on the cake. She agreed and on I went.

Initially although I'd scraped much of the faux-IMBC off the cake what remained was preventing the ABC from adhering and things were not looking hopeful. However with a light hand I applied a layer of ABC and slowly slowly with refrigeration in between, I managed to get the cake iced and decorated and it didn't look half bad! Complete with Sweet Stamp lettering, fondant cars and sprinkles!