Follow Up To My Frozen Cake Disaster Kinda....
Baking By athenanathy Updated 8 Jul 2019 , 11:35pm by jchuck
So long story short, I had a big cake order and I left of the cakes that still needed (drips and a buttercream border) in the freezer overnight. I went to close my eyes for just 30 mins and then.... It was the next day and the cake was due to be picked up within 3 hours.
I naturally took the cake out placed it in my counter and just like magic my cake was sweating.... all the beads of water were so noticeable... they were running down the cake. This was a solid swiss merengue buttercream cake.
I placed the cake back in the fridge for about 40 mins and did noticed that the sweating slowed down / stopped (as suggested by many in other posts on frozen cakes. So I felt brave enough to take it out and try to add the last details. What a MESS. Not only did the cake start immediately sweating but also I added the drips.... which looked HORRIBLE... it was going straight down like a smear /rain drops and this pushed the sweating water all the way down and looked like a pool or water... needless to day. I had to scratch that idea and scrape if off and try and smooth this sweating cake again. Then I tried adding the border... I was soo nervous, upset my hand could not stop shaking and I made ruffles instead of borders :( I tried covering as much as possible and added small details all over to cover some of the mess ups. I think it came out ok. I placed the cake back in the fridge until it was time to be picked up. I told the customer about the sweating which is normal since its going from cold to hot but that it will eventually stop. This was at 10am and she said she was going back home with the cake since the part was at 3pm and the cake cutting was due at 4:30. Needless to day I was nervous all day. Until the finally send me a picture of the table display and it looked great, everyone loved the cakes and all went as she planned. She doesnt know about the high blood pressure I had all day waiting to hear that all went well.
What did it learn, well to set timers and alarms for my "closing my eyes" episodes.
Thank you ladies for replying and being interested in the outcome. Here are some pictures of my cakes at home and the pic she sent of the display. I made everything on that table.
athenanathy I have frozen smbc and all buttercream cakes many times. Honestly, I’ve never had them “sweat” badly, having noticeable condensation running down the cake. Strange. I know that eventually all water/condensation will evaporate as cake comes to room temperature. Just takes a bit of time. As long as you don’t touch the cake, it’s fine. But everyone’s freezer is set a different temperatures. Anyway, it’s great that everything worked out ok, and your customer had no issues. Yeah!!!! You managed the hiccup!!
ps: There are no pictures uploaded on this post. And didn’t see any uploaded on your page either.
Yes thank you for letting us know how well it all turned out As was said it would have been fine if you could have just waited for it to dry naturally/evaporate but that could have taken several hours Exactly how long depends on how cold the fzr was vs how warm the room & if any humidity is involved , also what size the cake is We look forward to seeing your pictures—try posting them again
The sweating is the natural reaction of a cold object being put in warm air. If the warm air is also humid air, the sweating will be worse. The only way to control the sweating is to make sure that the item is less cold [i.e. just refrigerated rather than frozen] and/or the air is less humid [location is being dehumidified].
To mitigate intense sweating, you can place the cake in a CARDBOARD box while it is defrosting, either in the fridge or on the counter. The sweat goes to the cardboard, not the cake. If you need to decorate while the cake is coming to room temp, placing the cake in the path of a fan will help.
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