Hi Cakers!

When I fill my cakes normally, I let it settle for a full 24 to 30 hours, before I go to ice it. This helps out with the bulging that sometimes happens when cakes settle.

However, my party date was moved up a day at the last minute!!!Uggg....

My cake has been covered in food safe plastic and filled for 12 hours. Do you think this is enough time for settling to occur?

Thank you in advance...

Michael

That should be OK, but to be sure, you can always put something on it that's flat that weighs about the same as a ceramic tile. I've used a pyrex baking dish on a small cake. I weighed it down for a few hours.

Also, maybe next time you can also consider using ganache as your final icing before fondant. I never rest my cakes anymore and never had a problem with buldging.

I never knew you had to wait after filling the cake! I feel kinda silly. Does it make that big of a difference?

I'm obviously a big fan of weighting, so I'd throw something on top of it for an hour.

And by throw I mean, carefully place something on top.

I fill, frost, decorate one after the other and don't have any problems......although I do stick a cake board on top of my cake and mash the living daylights out of it...til it looks like a squashed tire, and I also use a REALLY thick buttercream as my dam.

lol...never thought about how the cake feels....now I feel terrible hahahha

actually now I use masonite boards to mash the cake! LOVE that stuff!

I don't weight..I wait...LOL...ok, enough of that...I wait at least 3 hours so you are more than safe!

Cat

quick question on the filling and waiting, do you also wait to crumb-coat or do you fill and crumb coat and then wait?

fill, crumbcoat then wait for it to settle. The crumbcoat seals in the moisture. Cat

I do not crumb coat. If I was to crumb coat, I would wait until after the cake is settled. If you crumb coat then let settle, you would make a mess of your crumbcoat when you go to take the excess bulge off...

HTH

Michael

I have never weighted a cake. The bakery I worked for never weighted a cake. We froze the leveled layers and then filled, crumb-coated and kept in the cooler--not freezer. Kept them cold until delivery and let come to room temp gradually. Never had a problem with bulging. Perhaps it's different recipes that are prone to bulging.

Thanks everyone for your quick response!

do you let them settle in the fridge or counter?