To Refrigerate or not to Refrigerate your Cakes The BIG DEBATE

This subject comes up so many times with so many conflicting opinions, at the end of the day if you leave a cake or Cupcake at Room Temperature during a heatwave its at high risk of bulging and if a tiered cake its at risk of collapse this is without thinking about any detailed piping work such as flowers which can melt and loose there shape. You can easily test this by just leaving your filling so for example American Buttercream Frosting at room temp during a heatwave and see how soft it becomes, the softer the filling the more a layer of cake under fondant can move, the more it moves the more likely the fondant will show cracks as well as bulging.

If your cake is only covered with buttercream and no fondant it can all melt and become very unstable and the cake still needs to get from your kitchen to its final destination so what do you do?

The cake pictured here is all buttercream (no fondant) lots of filling , It was not made during a heatwave, however to make the cake more stable and help prevent accidental damage it was kept in a fridge until it was collected by the customer.

I have been in this industry now for well over a decade and have made some amazing cakes during intense heatwaves, these heatwaves as we all know are becoming more common no matter where you are located in the world. Some of these cakes were `Wedding Cakes` and I am going to share one of them with you in this BLOG as well as what I did to keep that cake stable and protected from the heat.

No one thinks twice about placing a loaf of bread in a freezer and defrosting it when they are ready to use it do they ? It doesn't dry out the bread due to the packaging, we all know if you don't wrap your cakes up after baking once cooled they will eventually go dry just like a slice of bread would if left exposed to the air. That is the only thing that will ruin a cake, exposing it to the air so why do people worry about placing a decorated cake in a fridge in a heatwave ?

As long as your cake has a layer of protection, for example Covered in fondant or Buttercream this acts as a natural protective barrier from the air which in turn prevents it from going dry. When you take a covered cake out of a fridge and you see condensation (placing it in a box does not stop this its a natural process just like with any item you take out of the fridge) as the cake gradually reaches room temperature it dries and you wont see any condensation.

You can help this process and speed it up by investing in a portable air conditioning unit, cool the room down first, then place the chilled cake in a colder room, it will sweat but not as much and soon dry.

Following this general guide your fillings will be lovely and hard, this gives you a nice sturdy cake, safer to transport, harder to damage. Do bare in mind however during a heatwave you don't have long until everything starts to go soft unless you have a portable air conditioning unit.

The cake pictured here was made in one of the UKs hottest heatwaves to Date

The cake pictured here was made during a heatwave, each tier was placed in the fridge, the day it was due to go to the venue I was up extremely early before the sun rose in order to cool down the kitchen as much as possible with a portable air conditioning unit. I was able to get the cool environment to 15`C, baring in mind the units have a built in fan that blows around cold air, this in turn also helps to dry the condensation on the cake.

Each tier was taken out of the fridge so that they could sweat and reach a warmer temperature, when it was at the venue the cake was no longer sweating, the fillings were still lovely and solid and it arrived safely.

The only thing that you need to take into consideration is some fondant accents you may have on the cake, for example a hand made figure or a number popping out of the top. Sugar work dries as long as it is not in a humid atmosphere, when you add it to a fridge then take it out it can go soft again, so with simple celebration cakes its best to add the sugar models or numbers that are all gravity defying when the cake is at room temp and finished sweating.

This is a great example of what I have just explained. If this cake needed to be kept in a fridge I would not add the edible sugar model until it had reached Room Temperature on the day of collection.

So in a nut shell from lived experience I find it best to refrigerate my cakes, this is a MUST if we are in a Heatwave however I now refrigerate no matter what the weather is like as I know it will help prevent accidental damage to the cake, prevents bulging where the fillings are and by the time the customer eats it, its at a lovely temperature, so the answer is YES do refrigerate your cakes if you can.