Chocolate cake crumbling - how to prevent

Quote:

Originally Posted by BuffytheBakingSlayer 
Then flipped it out and left it to cool upside down about 20 minutes.  It stuck to the aluminum foil covered cardboard cake round.

 

Not sure how to to get the cake in one piece to the point  I can wrap it up for freezing. 

You prevent this by immediately flipping it back to the flat bottom.  It can crack while upside down on the hump within seconds... cooling for 20 minutes upside down is far too long.  Don't freeze in pan -- that's worse -- harder to release.  You'll get a whole cake by following directions from 4 days ago to use cardboard circles to "sandwich" your layers between while flipping.  You can try freezing it now, to scrape the frozen layer from the foil.  Make sure you're using a circle for support when you flip it.

No, you pull it out... it doesn't go in the freezer anyway.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by BuffytheBakingSlayer 

I am also having issues with the flower nail.  I guess I just need to poke a hole in the cardboard to make room for it?  Because it prevents the sandwiching.

Is the cake stuck to the foil or is it in the pan? If you stick it in the freezer right side up on another cake board, you should be able slowly pry off the covered cake board.  Am I understanding the problem correctly?

Or if it is still in the pan, you could put in back and the oven for a few minutes, and then flip it onto a board and then flip it back right side up. hth

Hi BuffyTheBakingSlayer, nice name by the way.  I see you are having a lot of trouble with your cake, (read past posts),  I like making cakes from scratch but for large orders I use BakeMark cake mixes because scratch cakes are finicky, and if you get one thing wrong, that's it, you have to start over.  I will give you a few chocolate cake recipes from school that are pretty sturdy, reliable and have great chocolate flavor.  Your own recipe might be okay, maybe it is the technique you are using, like I said who, knows with scratch cakes.  You might not believe me but in Bakery Production class at school we only did scratch cakes for a final grade, the rest for the bakery were all mixes and bases.  It is a matter of humidity, room temp, the temp of the ingredients, and the temp of the water, that will make or break a scratch recipe. So for production sake we had to have the same product consistency every time, hence the mixes and bases.

When I bake my cakes, I grease the pan with home made pan grease, and line it with circles I made from parchment paper the same size as the pan, you could use wax paper too.

I bake the cake according to the instructions and when it is done, when the tooth pick comes out clean I let them cool but only for about 7-10 minutes or until I can safely handle the pan.  I always cover my work table with enough of sugar to lay my cakes on it, after I take the pan and invert it onto my hand, then I place them right side up on the sugar to cool, believe they wont stick after they cool, if you don't want to clean up the extra mess just put the sugar on a sheet of wax paper, then when you are done you can just toss it.  I don't mind the hump, it usually happens when the oven is too hot,  I just trim them after the cakes have cooled completely and keep them for cheese cake bottoms, cake pops, or cake Spackle but they don't always last to save, because I have little two legged critters the snatch them as soon as I turn my back,lol

I hope this helps a little.

sorry I edited because my keys are horrible on laptop,lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by BuffytheBakingSlayer 

I think maybe you misunderstand me.  When trying to sandwich and flip out the cake, the nail is tall and therefore pushes against the cardboard.  So it either bends in the cake and tears it up, or the cardboard is too far away from the cake and breaks up.

If you invert on a cooling rack, the tall nail passes through... remove nail, place cardboard, flip over.  (or don't use the nail if it's messing you up.)

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood, the question.