How do I properly freeze and thaw cake?

I am confused.


A cake baked on Thursday will be plenty fresh or a Saturday wedding. Freezing the cake won't keep it any fresher.



I freeze all my cakes, but I bake them the weekend before they are needed. The size of the tier will determine how long it takes to defost. A 6" cake will defrost faster than a 16" cake. I would say from my experience I can start working on all the tiers within 1.5hrs from taking them out of the freezer. Now, the larger tiers may still be a little frozen in the middle, but I am fine with that. It makes lifting them easier because they won't break.



If I am understanding this, you plan on leveling, filling, icing, stacking, decorating Saturday morning (because you said the cakes would thaw overnight Friday night) for a Saturday wedding. That is up to you, but leaving all that till the night before it is due would scare me to death. What if you drop something?
I buy my saran wrap in bulk from Sam's Club. It comes in a 16" or 18" wide X like 1000 ft long container. I love it. I triple wrap all my cakes and place them in freezer. No foil or freezer bag. Never had a problem.



I just leave them wrapped on the counter until I am ready to use them. But once again, I think the freezing process is useless since the wedding is only 2 days away. You are leaving no time for your cakes to settle once filled.

I'm a "always freeze" person! lol I always freeze my cakes, even if they are baked on Thurday. I don't do it to keep the cakes fresh, I think they are easier to work with and they are moister.

This is what I would do with your situation.

Bake the cakes today (Thursday), let them cool completely, then wrap in 2-3 layers of saran wrap (and a layer of foil if you want to, but since the cakes will only be in the freezer for a short while, I think it would be okay not to) and put in freezer.

Tomorrow (Friday) morning, take them out of the freezer and let them thaw IN THE WRAPPING on the counter. Start decorating Friday after they are thawed. You don't want to wait until Saturday morning unless you are confident that nothing will go wrong.

I think I'm going to start wrapping the cakes in about 3 layers of plastic wrap like cai0311 cause I hate wrapping them in foil too! lol (Plus foil costs so much! I reuse a lot of foil unless it is messed up for that reason!) Unless the cake will be frozen for a couple of weeks. I usually don't freezer for longer than that anyway!

Oh ok! I have a full-time job also so I've have to timeline everything! lol

I work full time too, which is why I bake a week in advance. Cakes are not the only thing in life that can cause a schedule to be thrown off - which is why I personally like all my orders completely finished Friday night.

About 3 weeks ago I had a wedding I had to supply 21 dozen cupcakes. I finished all the cupcakes but 3 dozen (each recipe makes 3 dozen so I only had to make 1 cupcake recipe and bake them, I had the frosting already made) and was so tired I decided to go to bed and bake the last batch the next morning (Saturday - same day they were due). A little before 8:00am I was finished making the batter, about to put all 3 dozen in the oven when I heard this "click" sound. The power shut off for the entire neighborhood. Thankfully it came on about 25 minutes later and I had plenty of time to finish the order. But had it not, I would of had to call a friend to ask to use their oven, drive over to the house, bake the cupcakes (and most likely I wouldn't have been able to fit all 3 dozen in the oven because I have a true convection oven at my house and can bake 6 dozen cupcakes at a time), drive home, ice the cupcakes... It would have killed a lot of time.

If you are comfortable with your time frame, that is what matters. From experience from my life, anything left last minute (I consider decorating a cake the day it is due last minute) something will go wrong.

As a side note, I am unavailable to decorate Saturday mornings from 9:00am - 1:00pm because my husband and I do volunteer work during this time. If I had that time to decorate, MAYBE I wouldn't be so determined to finish everything Friday night.

How did everything work out?

Which cake is it?

Very pretty!