I love, love, love your deep dives, thank you for sharing your knowledge so generously!
Do you have experience with freezing this sponge by any chance?
I'm tasked with making my friends' wedding cake, and due to travel (about 8h drive in a cooler), my strategy is to bake the sponge and make curds/jams for filling ahead of time, freeze them, and then let them defrost during the drive in the cooler the day before the wedding.
That way I'll only need to prepare the icing and assemble the cake once I arrive - and I can also avoid baking an important cake in an oven I don't really know at short notice! And by transporting cake elements rather than finished cake I don't have to stress about the structural integrity of it!
I'm fairly confident in my baking/cake making skills, it's just the travel element that is making me a little nervous. Any advice would be great help!
This sounds like an excellent plan! Freezing sponges is 100% ok, oil based sponges tend to freeze best or a sponge that has a combination of oil and butter like this one.
I’d try to build the cake whilst the sponges are as cool as possible and would recommend transporting all of your fillings right in disposable piping bags tied at the top so that it’s really fast and tidy to build, especially in an unfamiliar setting. I’d also recommend taking extra buttercream and a few extra layers of sponge.
Let me know if you have any more questions, working on a tiered cakes post but I think it’ll be a while before it’s ready so hit me up if you need anything
The advice about piping bags would never cross my mind, that is so smart! Should I freeze the fillings in piping bags then too (will use your curd recipes to make the filling I plan to freeze, and jams should be fine without freezing made couple of days ahead)
I will have access to a kitchen with a standing mixer, the same as the one I own, so was planning to make the icing (I'm deciding between meringue buttercream and white chocolate ganache) on the spot rather than transporting it, and yes, will make at least 1.5x the amount!
The wedding is in mid October, but I want to have my cake flavours and strategy worked out over the next couple of weeks because I will be travelling loads in August and September, and it's far too important to leave it for last minute.
I've only made tiered cake once, and while I nailed it with sponges (firmer, oil/butter based bottom cake, and light chiffon-like oil-less sponge for top cake), my bottom cake's filling was not firm enough, a mistake which I will not repeat again. It was for a family event, and at a fresh age of 20, I did it the bay before, with no recipe testing or strategy and also had a misfortune of our family dog eating half of the top sponge while it was cooling and having to bake an extra sponge in the middle of the night. So that was fun.
It's things like having everything already in piping bags which makes life so much easier! Seems like you have it all worked out! Curd will freeze fine, jam won't need it but you can always freeze it if you like!
If you're worried about stability I'd recommend white choc ganache on the outside but samba for the inside as it's a bit tastier! I'll definitely have my tiered cakes newsletter out before October so hopefully that will be helpful!
Thanks a lot for your hard work and for a great writeup. I have a quick question, if this recipe was to be mixed in a stand mixer. For the first step, and in order to reach the "Breadcrumb stage" would it be mixed with a flat beater? Very soft butter would still be added to the dry ingredients, or somewhat colder / harder butter? Thanks a million for everything you're doing.
Oh yes sorry I should have made that more clear. I get to the breadcrumb stage with the flat beater and then swap to the whisk once there are no lumps. The butter needs to be very soft when you add it in to the dry in order for enough air to be incorporated during the whisking stage, like REALLY soft, I zap mine in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds
Hi Sophie!
I love, love, love your deep dives, thank you for sharing your knowledge so generously!
Do you have experience with freezing this sponge by any chance?
I'm tasked with making my friends' wedding cake, and due to travel (about 8h drive in a cooler), my strategy is to bake the sponge and make curds/jams for filling ahead of time, freeze them, and then let them defrost during the drive in the cooler the day before the wedding.
That way I'll only need to prepare the icing and assemble the cake once I arrive - and I can also avoid baking an important cake in an oven I don't really know at short notice! And by transporting cake elements rather than finished cake I don't have to stress about the structural integrity of it!
I'm fairly confident in my baking/cake making skills, it's just the travel element that is making me a little nervous. Any advice would be great help!
This sounds like an excellent plan! Freezing sponges is 100% ok, oil based sponges tend to freeze best or a sponge that has a combination of oil and butter like this one.
I’d try to build the cake whilst the sponges are as cool as possible and would recommend transporting all of your fillings right in disposable piping bags tied at the top so that it’s really fast and tidy to build, especially in an unfamiliar setting. I’d also recommend taking extra buttercream and a few extra layers of sponge.
Let me know if you have any more questions, working on a tiered cakes post but I think it’ll be a while before it’s ready so hit me up if you need anything
Awww, thank you so much!
The advice about piping bags would never cross my mind, that is so smart! Should I freeze the fillings in piping bags then too (will use your curd recipes to make the filling I plan to freeze, and jams should be fine without freezing made couple of days ahead)
I will have access to a kitchen with a standing mixer, the same as the one I own, so was planning to make the icing (I'm deciding between meringue buttercream and white chocolate ganache) on the spot rather than transporting it, and yes, will make at least 1.5x the amount!
The wedding is in mid October, but I want to have my cake flavours and strategy worked out over the next couple of weeks because I will be travelling loads in August and September, and it's far too important to leave it for last minute.
I've only made tiered cake once, and while I nailed it with sponges (firmer, oil/butter based bottom cake, and light chiffon-like oil-less sponge for top cake), my bottom cake's filling was not firm enough, a mistake which I will not repeat again. It was for a family event, and at a fresh age of 20, I did it the bay before, with no recipe testing or strategy and also had a misfortune of our family dog eating half of the top sponge while it was cooling and having to bake an extra sponge in the middle of the night. So that was fun.
Thanks loads, you are so wonderful!
It's things like having everything already in piping bags which makes life so much easier! Seems like you have it all worked out! Curd will freeze fine, jam won't need it but you can always freeze it if you like!
If you're worried about stability I'd recommend white choc ganache on the outside but samba for the inside as it's a bit tastier! I'll definitely have my tiered cakes newsletter out before October so hopefully that will be helpful!
Sorry to hassle you so much, but what is samba? Do you mean a mousse-like filling? Tried googling to no avail hah.
I'm so excited to test my flavors/freezing/stability in the next couple of weeks, that will be so much fun.
All the best from sunny California!
Sorry that was a typo I meant SMBC as in Swiss meringue buttercream!
Thanks a lot for your hard work and for a great writeup. I have a quick question, if this recipe was to be mixed in a stand mixer. For the first step, and in order to reach the "Breadcrumb stage" would it be mixed with a flat beater? Very soft butter would still be added to the dry ingredients, or somewhat colder / harder butter? Thanks a million for everything you're doing.
Oh yes sorry I should have made that more clear. I get to the breadcrumb stage with the flat beater and then swap to the whisk once there are no lumps. The butter needs to be very soft when you add it in to the dry in order for enough air to be incorporated during the whisking stage, like REALLY soft, I zap mine in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds