Refrigerating Cake After Crumb Coat...concerned
Decorating By sweetcravings Updated 6 Oct 2008 , 2:26am by Sugar_Plum_Fairy
Well, i saw a video this week stating you should refrigerate your cake after the crumb coat, wrap and put in it overnight to settle. I did this with my cakes. This morning i planned on icing them so i took them out around 30min before i was going to put on the final coating of icing. I couldn't believe how beautiful i was able to get my icing even before i smoothed it. It was sooo much easier to work with. My only problem is it is taking forever for it to crust so that i can use my textured paper towels. Should i be concerned??? Or should i just wait till later to finish it up?
I hope i didn't mess the cake up now. I don't see any condensation but i'm a bit concerned at this point. What are your thoughts?
I never refrigerate my cakes. I heard YEARS ago (like before most of you were BORN!) that refrigerating cake and bread was a bad thing. Somewhere on here, a CC'er posted an article from Cooking Illustrated that confirms refrigerating a cake actually speeds up the "going stale" process, but freezing it halts the "going stale" process.
So I let my crumb-coated cakes sit on the counter overnight. The icing airdries and crusts just fine and the cake settles. Icing goes on the cake and crusts within minutes for me.
Thanks indyebi,
I never put the crumb coated cake in the fridge before but i figured i'd give it a try. I was very impressed with the ease of icing the cake after doing this.
After i posted the question i decided not to sit around and wait for the cake to crust and i went shopping. ;0)...came back a few hours later and it was fine, i finished off the cake. It looked good, no problems that i see at this point.
If i were to do this in the future i would take it out way sooner so that it has time to come to room temperature. Thankfully the cake wasn't due till tommorrow so i had time to wait on it.
Thanks for your response. I will have to read up on this, i'm sure there is something written somewhere online on this very topic.
If i were to do this in the future i would take it out way sooner so that it has time to come to room temperature.
If you're going to leave it sitting out a long time to come to room temp anyway, you might as well just leave it sit outside of the 'frig to start with. 
after watching the amazing wedding cakes show, i see that they also crumb coat and out in the fridge overnight. i also do this and the cake is nice and crusted firm and and settled. if it works leave it alone.
If i were to do this in the future i would take it out way sooner so that it has time to come to room temperature.
If you're going to leave it sitting out a long time to come to room temp anyway, you might as well just leave it sit outside of the 'frig to start with.
Good point! 
i'm thrilled you posted....i've never refrigerated, and I, too saw the amazing wedding cakes show....
my refrigeration concerns: of course, the time factor....
and, doesn't it 'sweat' when it comes back out? i find it needing to come back to room temp or the sweat factor gets in between the two layers....
i don't care for refrigeration....
and i have tried,
i crust fine without it, BUT
i'm willing to consider an option iF i can get a better result from it....
random thoughts,
sally
i always thought it was necessary due to the fillings in the cake. If you fill it and leave it out..........then decorate and leave it out..........can a cake stay without refrigeration this long?
just wondering 
it would be much easier to leave out due t lack of refrigerator space.
thanks everyone
I refrigerate after crumb coating for a short amt of time. With noncrusting icing its GREAT.
With crusting icing, if you do have to smooth it, you do have to let it come to room temp after you ice it before it will crust and be smoothable.
With fondant cakes though I just smooth it mostly and then put the fondant on. Depends how thick the fondant is though.
I like how the refrigeration makes it firmer and easier to ice. And my cakes are never stale. 
I read the same post to which Indydebi is referring and I thought it was talking about refrigerating a cake without it having been iced would hasten it getting stale. Maybe I misunderstood, but I think when the cake is iced it sort of seals in the cake, even when the icing is plain ol' bc. I know when they recommend freezing that you can freeze a frosted cake and buttercream freezes well, but I think they recommend freezing it plain over it being frosted for the best results. Wish I could remember the post and/or whom the member was that posted.
interesting...i put all of my cake - and bread - in the fridge.
the bread does great it will stay for weeks in the fridge without molding. nothin like a peanut butter sandwich on cold oatmeal bread! am i weird??? haha
I keep my bread in the fridge too. It started because one of my cats loves bread and when my DH and I were first married (we got the cat about a month before the wedding right after we had the apt) whenever we came home from shopping we'd put the bread to the side so we could get everything else put away. By the time we got to the bread there'd be a hole in the bag and pieces of bread were all over and the bread was demolished - she'd actually tear through the plastice bag to get through the bread. So we started just putting the bread in the fridge first before anything else and it sort of just stuck (no room for a bread box as it was a very small kiitchen!).
Ah the things our pets teach us. Well at least the bread doesn't tear when making a PB & J sandwich! 
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