Whenever I get a bride that went with someone else, I always send them a feedback form, as to help make my tastings better. (Usually its price that changes their mind for someone else, not much I can do about that!) Anyway, this one bride told me she went with someone else because they told her they bake thier cakes..yes BAKE their cakes the day before the wedding. I just dont see how this is possible...I don't even torte my cakes the day before..I usually do them on Thursday for a saturday wedding to let them settle and do the crumb coat, etc.

I honestly think this person is pulling this brides leg to just get a sale. I am honest with brides on my process...do any of you actually bake your wedding cakes the day before?? (How do you even find time if you do!)

I work pt at a grocery store and we usually do a wedding cake each weekend.

We have done it a couple of times, because something has happened to the cake we already have, or we didn't receive the type of cake we were waiting for. However it is defintely the exception to the rule.

I mean fresh baked cake does not serve well. Fresh baked cake crumbles so it's not a valid selling point. But it's one of those things that you don't emphasize because people think cake should be baked the day before or day of even. It's another of those annoying myths about cake.

I would also want to say something to point about baking a few days ahead, so that you are prepared and you know that everything is of the highest quality. And that if something happened to the cake while you are baking or whatever you would have enough time to rebake it, and not have to rush or have the cake done late.

That is the same here, I would think the crumb would need a chance to "settle". As well as the fillings...but I like that statement, to bake ahead means you are prepared for emergencies!!

Sometimes the power goes out too. I've had it happen during a cake, I'm sure most everyone has theirs go out one time or another. So that's why we got a back up generator too. But then the garage got broken into. Oh well. That's why I do retail books huh.

*raises hand*

I bake the day before. I used to start earlier in the week - but then I started getting busy with other things earlier in the week so I put off the cakes until the last minute. The down side is that many times I stay up all night decorating... thank God for No-Doz!

It's very rare now that my cakes are baked 2 days prior instead of one. And a few are baked and decorated the same day. (Rarely - but I did do that last week)

You gotta quit doing that, PKitten-Munchkin.

1) for health--regularly blowing your sleep will catch up with you.

2) for sanity--that's living dangerously on the edge

3) they slice better older

((hug))

I bake, cool and fill... and then put them in a large plastic bag and let them sit at room temp overnight and then decorate the following day so the settling is done.

On the days that I have been forced to bake/decorate the same day - if it settled, I wouldn't know as it went out the door so quickly.

Pardon me, I stuttered. (duplicate post)

I haven't only done three wedding cakes, but I usually bake the day before or two days before. That is for any cake. It's my personal choice. I don't like cake that is a few days old, it doesn't taste as good to me, and I don't have freezer room to bake and freeze so that means I do it as close to the due date as possible.

If I did this as a business, and was able to afford a freezer then I would probably bake early in the week and freeze.

i a BIG fan of baking ahead....i've had to bake a few the day before, due to poor planning on my part, but i DO NOT like it. (i still freeze it overnite)

i never use it as a selling point tho......as K8 said, they don't serve as well.

duff says he never freezes his cakes....it just seems like cakes that have never been frozen are so unstable.

It definitely does depends on the cake. I like to work with cold (from the fridge) cakes, and I have some recipes that can easily be used the same day if I had to. Most cakes that I make though just get better with time.

I like to bake and freeze if I am busy.. if not I do it the day before.. that gives it plenty of time to settle and do it's thang. Wedding cakes I bake ahead to avoid disaters.

Good Topic - I don't have a freezer, but even if I did I wouldn't freeze cakes as my slogan is Always Fresh, Never Frozen! If I have more than 3 wedding cakes - I bake Thursdays, Fill, Ice & Decorate on Fridays & Saturdays. If it's less than 3 wedding cakes then I bake on Fridays, Fill, Ice & Decorate on Saturdays.

I have never noticed that the cake is harder to slice by being too fresh. I do think it makes a huge difference if you bake too many days before the wedding. While it may be easier to decorate - brides are paying a pretty penny for wedding cakes and I think they expect them to be fresher than a Wednesday baking. JMHO of course...

Tammi

loriemoms - this is OT although I do bake ahead more then one day b/c I have a full time job on the side but I have a quick question - I was looking at your website and your cakes are beautiful - can you tell me what size round cakes do you usually use for 100 servings? Is it 14, 10 & 6?

thanks so much
Brandie

I almost always bake my wedding cakes that day or the day before. I rarely make more than 2 wedding cakes on any given weekend. I do not use fondant so mine do not take as long as many others do. I always prepare everything else ahead of time. I make all my frosting, boards, flowers and other decorations ahead. I have cut a lot of my own cakes and they are fine. I do not put tons of filling in so they don't bulge. I have a full time job, but once in a while I will leave early on Friday to bake. Sometimes I have late nights and early mornings, but my cake is always fresh. This does not astound me one bit as I have always done this. I have nothing against freezing, but do not have room to freeze a huge cake ahead of time. I sometimes freeze smaller cakes, and they are fine also.

I don't freeze anything, and I don't decorate cakes when they're cold, and I don't have any trouble with bulging, settling or whatever. I usually bake two days ahead, store them at room temp, then decorate a day ahead, but I've baked one day ahead sometimes. You can certainly do it, you don't need to let them "settle," I'd never even heard of that until I read it on some forum here yesterday. I think the only problem you'd have is if you tried to put icing on something that's not totally cooled off yet. You could certainly bake in the morning, decorate that evening, and then deliver it the next day.

Having said that, I don't do it the day before just because the electricity might go off! I tell people that I bake two days ahead in order to have a time cushion in case something goes wrong. I've had people ask me if I bake everything the day of the wedding, though, and I always wonder what the heck they're thinking. They must assume it takes about half an hour to put a wedding cake together!

Seriously.....as soon a people get engaged this weird cloud of "bridezilla" logic forms in their head and will think anything sounds like a reasonable excuse.

They just assume that you only have one cake to do that weekend. I tell my clients up front that even the most basic tiered wedding cake takes at least 15 hours to make and the we do several a week so we have to bake ahead of time to make sure everything is done properly.

Most of the time I only have one cake, and I can bake and ice it in less than a day...but they don't need to know the details of my business (literally). I always bake ahead because that give me time for error. I dropped a tier once and had to re-bake, let it cool, then Ice and decorate. there is no time for correction when you don't leave a cushion for yourself...no matter how long you have been doing it.

The only thing I should be doing on Saturday is adding small touches and delivery. That is because I refuse to stress myself out and lose sleep staying up all night to do a cake. It's already stressful enough, why make it worse?

I guess a lot of it depends on your time....I rarely have just one wedding or cake a week, and if I had to bake everything the day before the cake was due (on friday) I wouldn't have time to decorate, even staying up all night...I just don't see how you guys do it, do everything the day before! (like many said, what if there is a disaster?) Thanks for answering this for me, was very educational! I guess in the future, I will tell the brides "depends on the week" hahaha!

Oh PoleKitten--Calling PK--Hey Cake-Buddy if you fire up your oven today you won't loose your sleep tomorrow night. Bake today, PK-Munchkin!!! But watch you might not have any orders this weekend but anyway--It's Thursday!! Please think about guarding your health. That sleep thing, speaking from experience here, is crucial.

~~~Thursday Cake Baking Love To You~~~
K8