Cake Filling & Freezing

You should consider filling with a raspberry flavoured buttercream: 1 cup buttercream and 1/3-1/2 cup raspberry jam plus some extract to boost the flavour.  This will not bleed when you freeze and thaw it.

 

It's an unfortunate fact of life that both gelatin and cornstarch bleed when they are used to make fruit fillings that are frozen with the cake.  Mixing jam with buttercream makes it much more like the buttercream which freezes fine.

 

You might also consider freezing the cake layers without any filling, and assembling after thawing.  Then the jam-and-gelatin recipe works.  FYI the gelatin helps the jam to set stiff between the layers, important if you are stacking several tiers.

I need to add a question to this topic. I frequently bake and freeze my wrapped layers, then fill and decorate after thawing. I have never frozen a filled and crumbcoated cake, but I had wondered if you could. I know you said that you thaw it the day before, but do you thaw it in the refrigerator or out on the counter? I would think in the refrigerator it would take longer than a day to thaw, especially if I was going to cover the cake with fondant ( I live in a hot/humid area). I wish I didn't need to freeze cakes, but my day-job doesn't always allow me to work on an ideal time schedule. Any info would help greatly.

My two-cents worth is this, Atomic Bakes: freezing your layers has the important advantage of helping them retain moisture. I always do it. I've read in several threads here that some people level, fill, stack and crumb-coat cakes before freezing them, so it must work. If it's not a cake with fresh fruit or cream in it (and you probably couldn't freeze those, anyway), there doesn't seem to be any reason for thawing in the fridge over thawing on the counter. The one big problem with letting cakes come to room temp in cllimates like ours (ah, sweetie, I could tell you stories!) is the condensation that forms on the cake. You can avoid that if you leave the plastic wrap on the cake until it's at room temp - that way, the condensation forms on the plastic wrap and not on the cake itself.

 

And, oh, yes, I knew BakingIrene would know the lowdown on this - she's a genius!

Thanks, Marianna. I do frequently use the pudding mousse type filling (pudding mix whipped with heavy cream instead of milk), so maybe it wouldn't work for that, but I'll give it a try with buttercream. I have a cake layer left over from my last cake that is wrapped in the freezer now and no real use for it, but I want to try making a bananas foster flavor of pudding mousse (banana pudding mousse and whip in dulce du leche), so I might just whip that cake out of the freezer this weekend, try my new flavor mousse filling, then freeze it and see what the freezing does to it. I'm sure it wouldn't work with a typical whipped cream/cream filling, but I wonder if the pudding stabilizes it enough? I'll have to report back on my findings.

Excellent information guys. One more question, Lauralee, does it matter at all what type of frosting you use? Are there any types of frostings that you wouldn't freeze (I am thinking maybe cream cheese frosting or something due to dairy)?

Good question, AtomicBakes. I would freeze any kind of buttercream, but I don't know about cream cheese-based frostings, either. Be sure to let us know what happens with your experiment. I don't know whether you can freeze pudding-based things, either.

Any updates on how the cream cheese frosting froze? I have yet to make another pudding filling because it looks like I will only be able to use those for family since it is perishable and I am really trying to limit my recipe testing to ones that I can use when/assuming Louisiana's cottage food law passes in April. I did freeze filled cakes for the first time last week, though. I used Whimsical Bake House house buttercream (one flavored with a can of dulce du leche the other flavored with strawberry puree and LorAnn strawberry oil) as the filling and crumb coat. After filling the cakes, I compressed the cakes, crumbcoated to remove the filling bulge, and froze them briefly with no cling film so that I could trim the sides of the cakes first. Being able to easily trim around the sides of the cake is reason enough alone to freeze them filled. After trimming, I wrapped them in cling film and placed them in the freezer. I set them out on the counter late the night before I was to cover them with fondant. The only issue I had was unrelated to the freezing. Despite everything, I had bulges on the sides of the larger cake. So frustrating after all that work. The weird thing is that I seem to have less issues with the dreaded bulge when I don't compress the cakes. It probably would have been less apparent, but I covered that cake in homemade MFF (WC) and it tasted amazing but it was sooooo soft that it just showed the defects way too easily. But that is a post for the MFF thread. 

One more question on this, guys, if any of you are still paying attention. What is the longest you would typically freeze your cakes? Is 2-3 weeks too long? I'm baking this Friday and will have the filled cake in the freezer for a week, but it would be nice if I could do an upcoming cake at the same time and that one would need to be frozen for closer to 3 weeks. I just don't want the cake to end up being dry from being frozen too long. 

Not including filling, frozen layers typically have a 6 month freezer life.  However, we all know 1st anniversary cakes are frozen for a year or longer (filled, frosted, and decorated).  Wrap well, they'll be fine.

Sorry but if I could add another question. But when you wrap the cake layers only in plastic wrap, do you wrap it tightly? I thought that would squish the cake or mis-shape it. The same question to crumb coated cakes. Wouldn't that mess up the icing and straight edges wrapping it like that? Thanks for the help

No.  Not tight enough to misshape.  If it's on a cake board, the board prevents wrapping too tightly.  You don't even need to use wrap unless freezing for a long time -- a food safe bag will do.

 

I don't crumb coat -- therefore I don't freeze crumb-coated cakes, but it would be similar to freezing 1st anniversary cakes... freeze first, then wrap well after frozen solid (if freezing for a long time).  Wrap isn't necessary if you're freezing for short periods while working on your cakes.