Ok, so i've decided to try and make a few Christmas Cakes iced with marzipan and fondant to sell. i've priced cake boards and white cake boxes, etc but was wondering how to go about storing these cakes once iced.
Are they ok for say, a week or 2 weeks iced in a ordinary white card cakebox (not airtight) or do they need to be stored in an airtight container. Will the fondant and marzipan seal it from going bad and does the fondant go off? I ask because if i do sell them, i cant afford to provide airtight containers to customers but at the same time i think it would put people off if i tell them that they need to store it in an airtight container in case they dont have one.... please help, this is my first venture and I keep thinking of things that can go wrong!
Ps the cake has brandy in it to preserve it.
Christamas cakes can be kept few weeks or maybe months, if you wrap them and store properly. I made a christmas cake 2 weeks back and I wraped it in greese proof paper then sran wrap/ cling film and then in foil. And Ihave kept it in a cupboard.
So you can make few cakes and when a customer wants it marzipan and fondant it and give.
If you want a decorated cake to be seen by the customers, I would do a dummy cake and decorate it.
HTH.
Thanks! I know about the storing of uniced cakes and im not worried about that, its the iced ones that im unsure about.
I know what you mean about leaving them uniced and then doing the icing up when they want it but this would mean i have to leave all the icing of all the cakes literally until say, 2 or 3 days before christmas day.
could I sell and deliver them earlier than that? Would the iced cakes stay fresh out of an airtight container for a few days before use? i ask because a few people at my work want to buy cakes but the latest i could give them the cakes in the card cakeboxes would be a week before christmas day as we finish work on the Friday and Christmas day is the following thursday.
Thanks again!!
just keep them in a box in a cool place, the main thing is to keep the dust and bright sunlight off
The marzipan and sugarpaste act as a good seal, but I always seal the edge (where the cake meets the board) with royal icing. After placing the cake on the board, I put some RI in a parchment bag and pipe a line at the joint point. I follow up with an icing spatula, scraping away any excess RI. If you are working on white sugarpaste you don't need to add a border as you won't see anything, but on colored paste I'll add a snailtrail or a rope.
I made this cake for my Mum & stepdad's 25th wedding anniversary:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1255694.html
I live abroad, so I made the rich fruit cakes in July (plenty of booze!), and took them with us when we went on hoilday back to the UK in August. I decorated them when I was there with marzipan and fondant and left the cake as you see it in the photo. It was stored in a tiered cake box (just cardboard) in the spare bedroom until their party on the 28th September (so for about 5 1/2 weeks). Everyone said it was the best fruit cake they had ever eaten and it looked perfect, two of the guests even want me to fly back to the UK next year to make their wedding cake! So, from experience, you will be fine icing the cakes several weeks ahead if you want to. Good luck!
I am making my fruit cakes now and then I will wrap them same as previous poster and leave them to mature maybe til start of December to decorate.
I will be using fondant over marzipan this year instead of royal. I don't see why this part too could not be done well in advance just keep them covered and they should be fine.
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