As a surprise for our first anniversary, my mom (who had been kind enough to freeze and keep the top of our cake in her freezer) sent the cake via UPS.  No insulation or refrigeration, and not quite enough padding. She mailed it yesterday, and I assume that's when she removed it from the freezer.  I know that my best bet is probably to go ahead and eat it now,although it's a week early.  In general I am just upset that she sent it this way and would love advice from experts or professionals...how bad is this?  Is it a terrible idea to refreeze?  Thanks so much!

My advice on a personal level is to not eat it.  My cake was the most horrible thing I ever tasted a year after the wedding.  My mother-in-law had wrapped it perfect to preserve it, but it just tasted disgusting.  May I add here that the cake was a really good cake the day of the wedding. It was even frozen in a big deep freezer, not the regular refrigerator freezer.  Good luck!

I think I read somewhere that this tradition started in a place and time where it was also tradition to have fruit cake for your wedding. Fruit cake lasts forever. This business of trying to freeze a regular cake for a year is like the emperor's new clothes - everybody just pretends it works fine. This is something I'd leave up to Sarah Lee who has flash freezing equipment and uses recipes designed for freezing.  

 

So even though your cake had extra injury from being shipped, it probably wasn't going to be good anyway. I'd buy a little 5 in cake and celebrate with that.

mine tasted like poo

Many thanks to CakeRae80 and HowSweet! We had a lot left over and we've had some over the year, which has thawed well - although to be honest it was a little too sweet and sticky for us in the first place!  I think we may try half today and try refreezing the other half till our anniversary on Monday.

AIf you're going to eat it, I'd eat it now and not refreeze it. Refreezing isn't going to help anything.

Mine was still delicious a year later. It was a Smith Island cake. 8 layers of yellow cake and fudge frosting. Tasted perfect.

I just had my baker make me another cake that looked like the top of my wedding cake.  She was so sweet and gave it to us for free as an anniversary gift!

My grandmother wrapped our top tier with plastic wrap and foil. A year later, our marble cake was still as tasty as the day we said "I do" :) 

That settles it, I'm going to start making cakes a year in advance and freezing them.

I have a "one freeze rule" because I feel that subsequent freezing causes the cake to get very mushy. 

 

If I make a cake that I have to freeze, or know that the client will be freezing, then I don't freeze the layers after baking--which is my usual practice.

 

Depending on the type of cake, filling, and icing, I'd either eat it right away--or not at all.

AMy cakes taste fine a year later. But I provide detailed wrapping and freezing instructions to the bride, and I don't freeze cakes before the wedding, so the bride's freeze is the first freeze.

I have had many, many good reports from my brides a year later, when they had their cake and it was delicious.

It can be done, don't believe the myth that anniversary cakes always taste like cardboard.

Ours was not quite as good as fresh, but still quite good. I would eat it now and not refreeze if you're going to eat it at all.

AI don't refreeze anything.

The venue cut our top tier into a million tiny pieces, also known as Wilton servings, despite being told several times to keep it whole.

I'm afraid I just think it's icky to eat year old cake, even if it tastes wonderful, which I have a hard time believing. Maybe expectations are not quite the same for a year old cake?

A

The story I tell all my brides: When I got married, (15 years ago) I knew nothing about cake other than I wanted one that tasted good with real ingredients (not a box of chemicals that tasted like real food). I saved my top tier because I was sentimental like that, but I wasn't expecting much. A year later I defrosted as suggested, but we were taking a first anniversary trip to Canada (we live in Ohio). And it was August. So since I knew it would be terrible tasting, and I didn't want to take up car space with a big cooler, we decided to eat the cake a few days early, on our first night on the way there, in a hotel in Detroit. (People still populated Detroit in those days.) We got out the cake to have our obligatory slice of cardboard freezer burn, and were surprised to find it was amazing. Not quite like the day of, but as good as the next day after our wedding. We couldn't bring it with us, so we went out to get some milk, came back to the motel and gorged ourselves. Our cake top was a huge 9 inch, but even with eating as much as we could, we barely made a dent in it. I still have memories, 15 years later, of my beautiful cake turned upside down in the room's trash can as we were preparing to check out.

So yes, it can be done. And yes, I have VERY high expectations for cake taste.

AIf someone thinks it's gross to eat a defrosted year old cake, that's fine for them, but it bothers me when I see bakers putting down those who don't offer a free cake a year later, as a selling point for themselves. (I didn't say anyone on this post has done that, but I mean I see it all the time on bakers' websites.)

Personally I really wanted the sentimentality of eating a bit of my actual wedding cake. A replacement cake would have meant nothing to me. So once I realized with my own wedding that it could also taste wonderful, I set about finding out how to do it.

A

I was going to say basically the same thing you said. My wedding cake was made by Davis Bakery in Cleveland, Ohio, 18 years ago (this Friday) and when we unthawed it on our one year anniversary and enjoyed it after a nice anniversary dinner it was just as delicious as the day we fed cake to each other. People may find issues due to the type of cake, brand of ingredients, preparation, storage, etc....but, I am a testimony that even today, cakes CAN be frozen, unthawed and enjoyed on that one year anniversary. The brides I service have never called and complained and I even shared a piece with one couple last year.

A[quote name="BReis" url="/t/764365/help-top-tier-of-wedding-cake-in-sad-shape#post_7449966"]As a surprise for our first anniversary, my mom (who had been kind enough to freeze and keep the top of our cake in her freezer) sent the cake via UPS.  No insulation or refrigeration, and not quite enough padding. She mailed it yesterday, and I assume that's when she removed it from the freezer.  I know that my best bet is probably to go ahead and eat it now,although it's a week early.  In general I am just upset that she sent it this way and would love advice from experts or professionals...how bad is this?  Is it a terrible idea to refreeze?  Thanks so much! [/quote My wedding cake was made by Davis Bakery in Cleveland, Ohio, 18 years ago (this Friday) and when we unthawed it on our one year anniversary and enjoyed it after a nice anniversary dinner it was just as delicious as the day we fed cake to each other. People may find issues due to the type of cake, brand of ingredients, preparation, storage, etc....but, I am a testimony that even today, cakes CAN be frozen, unthawed and enjoyed on that one year anniversary. The brides I service have never called and complained and I even shared a piece with one couple last year.

Any tips you can share with us DebbyJG on how to go about doing that?

I didn't save mine I'm sentimental in pictures.

Thanks that is the instructions I sent to my bride. Just wondering if there was something I was missing.

Lol -ok, I was going to say as soon as I posted this there will be 10 people saying how delicious theirs was. I still stand by what I said, but I admit that it doesn't apply in all cases. Even with the perfect wrapping and freezer, I don't trust customers to carry a cake 8 feet across a room, let alone to store a cake for a year. Things happen - we moved twice the first year we were married and where I live now, power outages are way of life.

 

The other thing is I understand the sentimentality involved in wanting to eat a year old piece of my wedding cake about as much as the average guy. So I just don't get the point.

 

And I know it wasn't aimed at me, but just to be clear - I never give away free cake!  

I don't give away the free anniversary cake because I'm a new business and quite frankly would hate decorating a cake I'm not getting paid for later. That's just me.

I like to get paid for being away from my family and I like to make money.

A

Happy anniversary!! :)

A

Yep, that's what I do, although I always stress the importance of wrapping plastic wrap and foil, a few layers each, and between each layer, I tape every seem with packing tape, so no air can get in. Also the beginning instructions: refridge overnight until the frosting is firm, then take off the cardboard on the bottom of the cake, and do the first layer of plastic wrap, then put the board under that (so that the cardboard isn't against the cake). And then back in the box , then about two or three more layers of plastic wrap (tape each seam), then two or three of foil (tape seams again). Then 24 hours in advance, take it out of the freezer and thaw in the fridge, not opening any of the wrappings until a few hours before eating.

A

I've actually been to Smith Island!

A

I guess I should clarify I ordered this cake like any other. I would never expect her or anyone else to give it to us for free, honest!

Mine was a walnut torte and tasted amazing one year later. The cake was awesome, the marriage sucked!!