I recently took a Wilton class, but we never actually decorated any cakes -- just cookies and cupcakes -- so this will be my first attempt at doing a whole cake. The Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate cake is my absolute favorite, but I always have a lot of trouble with crumbs on the top of the cake. I know a little bit more about brushing away loose crumbs and crumb coating beforehand now, but I am wondering if I can use this for a cake I need to take out of the pan to decorate. It is a very moist cake, so I am concerned about crumbling. I would be thrilled if it's suitable, because that is the one cake everyone in the family truly likes!

AYou would need to take any cake out of the pan to decorate it. I've never used that recipe - how are you planning to decorate it? I imagine it would hold up well under buttercream but not sure on fondant.

Yes, it's fine, quite a few people on here use that recipe :)

Quote:

Lilaclady:  great cake, delicious cupcakes.  Crumb coat, solves your problems, Happy Baking.

ps: if you make the Hershey icing, don't use milk, substitute water instead. It gives it a fudgier flavor as milk dulls the chocolate richness IMO.

I run a custom cake business, and I use a tweaked version of that cake. I have never had a problem, in fact I have a tiered hero cake and a tiered snow white cake that I am using it for this week. Refrigerate after it has cooled, and that makes it a little less crumbly to trim. Then fill, refrigerate, crumb coat, refrigerate and then finishing icing.
 

Ditto with everyone else; I've never had a problem with that recipe. Line your pan bottom with parchment paper, cool for 10 to 15 minutes in pan before turning out onto cooling rack.  I place the rack on top of the cake pan and then turn over.  Cool layers completely remove parchment paper, wrap carefully with plastic wrap and place in freezer overnight. Remove from freezer, unwrap and allow to thaw completely.  (That freezing over night seems to stabilize the cake structure.)  I suspect that the real trick is not to handle the cake until it has had a chance to firm up.  Hot/warm cake is very delicate.

Perfect! Thanks for the help, everyone. This is for my husband's birthday, so it doesn't have to be perfect, but I do want it to be nice. I'm using the Wilton enchanted castle pan (he loves medieval things) and decorating it with blue turrets, red flags, and yellow window accents. The decorating party looks fairly easy because you only use stars for the cake background and tip #3 for the detailing.

I meant decorating "part," but it would be fun if it were a party. :)

Yes, I meant I usually leave the 13 x 9 cake in the pan and frost the top. It's only my husband and me here, so I don't need to be fancy most of the time.

Why did  you get to decorate a cake in class. I teach wilton. In second class , the students torte , fill and ice their cakes and at end of class , they decorate it. In 4th class they bring cake to class already iced and decorate that cake that nite. This is the way course 1 is done. First nite, they decorate cookies. and 3rd nite it is cupcakes. I make sure this all happens.

A

I'm still very new to Texas but I get the impression that the cake served in a pan business is a Southern thing.

No, not exclusively Southern; rather, it's a family/informal/short-of-time thing.

AI'm still somewhat new to the US too, it's just that I'd not really heard of it being done until I moved to the south where it seems to be very common.