Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the suggestions. I was in a time crunch so I took a leap of faith and bought a can of the Duff Goldman white frosting. Fits the bill - not as sweet as most of the canned ones and doesn't seem to have that same chemical taste. It will be fine under the layer of berries.

I was going to suggest Duff! Just saw his stuff was available. I bought some of his cake mixes and fillings (lemon, raspberry) but haven't tested them out yet. Let us know your verdict once the guests all taste!

Anonymous wrote:When I made the flag cake, I used pound cake and cool whip. Can you do something like that instead?

Cool Whip is gross.

OP here, thanks for the suggestions. I was in a time crunch so I took a leap of faith and bought a can of the Duff Goldman white frosting. Fits the bill - not as sweet as most of the canned ones and doesn't seem to have that same chemical taste. It will be fine under the layer of berries.

Just use Earth Balance spread in place of butter for the frosting (it's vegan).

The Carlos Bakery guy now has a canned version of their frosting. It's excellent. Bought it from SAfeway.

Have you considered making two cakes (one dairy and one dairy free) or even individual cupcakes? A bit more trouble, but maybe worth it for the dairy eaters.

When I made the flag cake, I used pound cake and cool whip. Can you do something like that instead?

7 minute icing is my favorite and super easy to make.

You can make a simple sea foam frosting ... Make a simple syrup with sugar and water on the stove, then add a couple of egg whites and a teaspoon of vanilla extract and whip with your hand mixer. It is cheap, white, easy to spread and very tasty.

The whipped kind is really good...for canned. Betty Crocker whipped I think. If you do chocolate make sure you get one that says fudge, it's better than just chocolate.

Why not skip the frosting and just do a light dust of powdered sugar? It'll taste better against the berries anyway.

You can substitute vegetable shortening or coconut oil for butter. The shortening is rather bland, so if you go that route, I would add extra vanilla.

I need to bake a cake this weekend, but several of the people at the party are lactose intolerant so a butter frosting and a cream cheese frosting (both of which I make) are out. Do any of the commercial canned vanilla frostings not taste terrible? I want something to make the field of a flag cake (with blueberries and strawberries for the stars and stripes)

I would also take any easy dairy-free frosting recipes that dont take trips to Whole Foods for ingredients.