I am get some conflicting answers on this so I figured Ill ask all of you...

I have my cake frozen right now and I am planning on torting and crumbcoating my cake on Friday and serve on Sat.

My question is do you wait for the cakes to defrost completely before torting and crumbcoating them or can I do that while they are defrosting?

TIA!

Let it thaw first. There are lots of issues that can happen when frosting a frozen cake, which you can avoid just by letting it thaw out first It doesn't take very long to thaw a cake.

I bake, cool, level, torte, wrap, freeze, unwrap, fill and crumbcoat while frozen and then leave to settle/come to room temp for at least 3 hours...more if I have the time and this is why.

If you wait till the cake is cool and then level and torte it's easier to do than to try to cut a frozen cake. When you bring it out of the freezer, all those lovely little ice crystals are going to give your cake moisture..if you let it thaw out you may have to deal with some soggy cake edges to try to crumbcoat but if you fill/crumbcoat while frozen then it locks in the moisture. BUT you never want to do your final coat on a cold cake so let the cake come up to room temperature before putting on that final coat of BC or fondant. This is because as it comes to room temp it will expell air and gas bubbles...thru a thin crumbcoat that's no problem...just smooth the splooshes and cover...but if you have put on a final coat it can actually make a huge bubble that can distort your cake. Also, if you give it that time it will have a chance to settle, thus giving you less of a chance of having that mid cake bulge from filling splooshing out as the cake settles. So the settling part is really important. Even a room temp cake needs settling time (lots put tiles on the cake to help this process but if you are waiting for a cake to come to room temp then this won't help you anyway).

HTH

Cat

Chilled, but not frozen.

Actually yesterday I took a frozen round out of the freezer and iced it, frozen, for my family to eat for dessert for later...this morning I noticed a crack in the top, from the cake expanding with the warmth under the buttercream.

So I don't think it'd be a great idea to ice it frozen for a customer...chilled, but not completely frozen solid.

I don't even crumbcoat a frozen or very cold cake. I use Indydebi's buttercream and I have issues with it crusting on a frozen or cold cake. I did crumbcoat and ice a frozen cake ONCE. It took close to forever to crust

Robin,

I think that's the difference between AR and CA...humidity. I don't have any problems with crusting (same recipe) on a frozen cake but my humidity levels are NOWHERE near where yours are. What is it today anyways...I hear that there is rain in your area? It's going to be 99 and 22% humidity.

Cat

No I don't....we have humidity issues here too.....