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Freezing Cakes


ryangary

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I bought a box of molten chocolate cakes from Presidents Choice that you cook from frozen in the microwave for 45 seconds or so. They come out perfect but the chocolate they use is inferior. My question is, if I was to make my own chocolate cakes let them cool, then freeze them, reheating them in the microwave for the same amount of time would they work. I like the fact that I can have a dozen or so in the freezer and just nuking them when friends pop in. Help me make this work! Please.

Edited by Smithy
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We keep our molten chocolate cakes unbaked in individual small brioche molds in the line fridge. If it is slow half the batch will be frozen (unbaked) in an airtight container in the freezer. You can keep the batter in the freezer and pull out a few to keep in the fridge (you can keep the batter in the fridge for about a week). If you want the flavour of real butter and good chocolate it might be worth it to wait the extra few minutes to just bake them off a la minute. We bake ours to order so we've never used the microwave for them. Can't help you with that, sorry. Also if you don't have brioche molds you can get individual aluminum cups.

If only I'd worn looser pants....

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you can make a batter and freeze it in individual ramekins or aluminum cups and then freeze them. molten cakes are molten usually because of raw batter in middle. high temp and short cooking time sets the outside of the cake leaving the middle liquid. if you make them yourself, don't cook them before you freeze them.

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We make about 120 at a time and keep them frozen. (I do wholesale for restaurants, caterers, country clubs etc...) They freeze well in the "cooked" state but really dont get liquidy that get more fudgy than anything else. I really havent gotten any complaints. I use Shokinag Semi sweet or buttersweet. The original recipe called for Valrohna 71% (too expensive for me to sell and make money on)

"Chocolate has no calories....

Chocolate is food for the soul, The soul has no weight, therefore no calories" so said a customer, a lovely southern woman, after consuming chocolate indulgence

SWEET KARMA DESSERTS

www.sweetkarmadesserts.com

550 East Meadow Ave. East meadow, NY 11554

516-794-4478

Brian Fishman

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If you make them with a truffle in the center then they should freeze fine, and reheat fine, after being baked. I imagine that trying to freeze them already baked using the 'raw batter in the middle' method would be more problematic.

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You can pre-bake the batter-center variety in advance, but only about half-way. Usually 3-4oz size take about 7 minutes to bake, so I pre-bake them for 3.5 minutes and refridgerate for service.

The truffle center variety can be fully pre-baked and reheated, but I prefer the results of half-baking for them as well.

If would only freeze them raw, regardless.

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I've been following posts on this forum for quite a while and wanted to ask a question related to something I read in the thread on the best chocolate cake recipes.

It was recommended that once the cakes cool down that they're wrapped and frozen overnight, then defrosted while still in their plastic wrapping.

I've made the cake recommended by the thread and my customers LOVE IT!

I do wrap and freeze it, and it's super moist.

My question is - can someone please explain why cakes should be frozen and defrosted to increase their moistness? Also - will this only work on some types of cakes, such as higher fat content cakes? How about on chiffon or genoise cakes?

Thank you all for the advice over the last year or two - I've found answers to many of my questions by just searching this forum. I look forward to more learning on my part.

Thanks!

Beaches Pastry

May your celebrations be sweet!

Beaches Pastry Blog

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That's a reicpe I'm actually a little protective of (my own specific variation at least), but what you should aim for is a truffle with apprx 3:2 cream/chocolate ratio. I like a little butter and glucose in mine too. The truffle should be plyable but not sticky when frozen.

I use a simmilar recipe for the cake as you would for the batter center variety, but bake it slightly longer. Once you fool around and get your timing perfect, you can have a product with layers of molten center, batter and truffle.

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I don't know how much I can offer, but I'll give it a try.

I freeze almost everything that comes out of my kitchen. The difference, however, is that I do it shortly after the cakes come out of the oven. This allows the steam that would normally escape into the air to be trapped in the cake, creating a more dense, moister cake. At least this has been my experience.

Part of it I would assume would be the fact that if you wrap and freeze it, no 'air' would be contacting it in dry form, therefore reducing the amount of drying. I'm sure it also has to do with some chemical reaction, but I don't know what that would be, lol.

I don't think that it would work as well for a genoise or chiffon cake as I think it would tend to be more crumbly than moist., but again, I don't work with that type of cake on a regular basis so I wouldn't know for sure.

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I don't think that it would work as well for a genoise or chiffon cake as I think it would tend to be more crumbly than moist., but again, I don't work with that type of cake on a regular basis so I wouldn't know for sure.

I am not a pro, but this has been my experience as well freezing sheets of biscuit (genoise). After freezing, the results are passable but certainly not better. However, I did get decent results with a genoise walnut cake. I believe this was due to the cake being moist to begin with, as well as the extra fat from the nuts.

OTOH, cakes like the CI sour cream chocolate cake (from the Best Choc. Cake thread) freeze extremely well. I found it actually tasted better out of the freezer. From my limited experience, it seems that moist cakes with higher fat content produce better results from freezing. I would love to hear more data on this.

Edited by sanrensho (log)
Baker of "impaired" cakes...
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i freeze all my cakes as well (i have 2 guys and myself and we do the work of atleast 6, so the freezer has become an asset to me)

i do notice sometimes the cakes made with meringue tend to be alittle more crumbly after freezing and thawing. High fat cakes tend to become alittle more dense.

Never the less i could not live without my freezer.

"Chocolate has no calories....

Chocolate is food for the soul, The soul has no weight, therefore no calories" so said a customer, a lovely southern woman, after consuming chocolate indulgence

SWEET KARMA DESSERTS

www.sweetkarmadesserts.com

550 East Meadow Ave. East meadow, NY 11554

516-794-4478

Brian Fishman

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........to clear up any misunderstandings.......cakes,sponges etc do not magically get 'moister' in the fridge/freezer...what happens is there is a migration of moisture from the centre of the cake to the crumb...you can test this yourself by trying a frehly baked madeira or genoise sponge fresh from the oven and then comparing it with one which has been kept in the fridge or even held at a cool ambient temperature (13-18 degrees c) for 24 hours. The freshly baked cake, as palatable as it is has a far dryer mouth-feel than the 'older' cake.

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Ryangary,

I think these molten cakes are pretty sensitive coz lots of recipes out there don't really work that well and the ones we develop are 'hot property', well, at least it is here in Thailand. You can search on the net for chocolate truffle cakes and there is a recipe by Wolfgang Puck out there somewhere. Never tried it but I think it would yield a tough cake.

Here are some tips.....

Get small cake rings around 3" X 2".

Make a basic ganache with your favourite chocolate. I use a mix of dark and milk chocolate for Thai tastes. Sweeten the ganache if necessary with glucose, invertase or light corn syrup. When the ganache sets up, pipe ganache into 'pucks' an inch smaller than your rings. Mine are 4 cm high coz we use flexipans to mold them.

For the cake base, use a chocolate pound cake recipe but half the flour and use cake flour instead. Let the batter rest 1 to 2 hrs minimum before using. Butter and flour your rings well. You will need the flour to ensure easy release (Just tap the ring with a knife all around) and to make sure your cake's walls are crisp and the molten chocolate won't collapse the structure. You can try cocoa powder (I mix cocoa with flour), but cocoa contains fat and won't crisp up the sides.

Using a medium tip, pipe a 'base' of batter into the ring. Place a frozen chocolate ganache puck inside, then pipe more batter in and cover it. Freeze or chill.

Bake at 200 deg celsius or 12 to 15 mins if chilled or 18 to 22 mins if frozen. Let rest 5 minutes before unmolding.

Apologies for not being able to post an actual recipe here but its company policy. But there are many recipes out there that you can try.

Then again.....you can contact your local Valrhona distributor coz they have a ready-made batter that you can scoop and bake. Have not tried it yet, but it should be good!

All the best!

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Please if you have a recipe for truffle center cakes I would love to try it.

I've used Alice Medrich's Molten Chocolate Cake recipe with great success. This link is to baking911.com but the recipe is from "The Baker's Dozen". She also printed this recipe with a white cake & raspberry truffle center in a back issue of Fine Cooking magazine.

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Orison Swett Marden

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you to everyone that replied. I appreciate the information. It seems that common sense follows in this case - high fat cakes seem to freeze much better, although we've all been known to bake ahead and freeze cakes in order to meet production schedules.

Mary

Beaches Pastry

May your celebrations be sweet!

Beaches Pastry Blog

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  • 9 months later...

I've tested my whippped cream filling with & without strawberries and it froze and defrosted fine. I wrap my filled uniced cakes twice and slide into those big cooking bags which are food safe. Sometimes I have to tape a coupla big bags together for huge cake.

Back then when I tested I was using piping gel in the whipped cream to stabilize it. I don't use it in there anymore but I haven't specifically re-tested. I'm only realizing this as I'm thinking this through here. So it probably will be fine. I know I have frozen stuff since then without the piping gel in the whipped cream but did not sample the cake. But y'know how one teensly little thing can change it all up in baking. My suggestion to you is test it yourself for a coupla hours with some filled cake scraps before you stick the cake in there. I'm sure it will be fine though. Mine are.

I use a brush to brush off any ice crystals before they can re-melt into my cake.

Edited by K8memphis (log)
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  • 1 month later...

When I have frozen cakes and cupcakes in the past, they always seem to get sticky and bits of the crust come off on the plastic wrap. Here is what I am doing:

Bake and cool completely. Wrap in plastic wrap and then freeze. Thaw in the wrap, then unwrap.

What am I doing wrong?

Ta, Kim

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Thawing in the wrap is what makes them melty. Well more precisely, it's the ice crystals trapped in the wrap and then melting into your food that makes stuff sticky. Not thawing in the wrap will resolve your issue.

I double/triple wrap my frozen stuff and when thawing I remove the wrap immediately, grab a brush and brush off all the ice crystals before they can melt. I do not want any of that frozen moisture in my stuff. My product was fine without it and I'm too big a control freak to let it sink in there. What if it imparts a freezer taste???!!!

Now some people swear by thawing their baked goods in the wrap, but not me.

Edited by K8memphis (log)
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When I have frozen cakes and cupcakes in the past, they always seem to get sticky and bits of the crust come off on the plastic wrap.  Here is what I am doing:

Bake and cool completely.  Wrap in plastic wrap and then freeze.  Thaw in the wrap, then unwrap.

What am I doing wrong?

Ta,  Kim

you're not doing anything wrong. if you're going to ice your cupcakes, then i wouldn't worry about losing some of the top crust.

maybe we can get harold mcgee to write abut this, but this is my theory:

you know the top layer of cake (the crust, so to speak) has a lot of sugar in it. with sponge cakes this is particularly noticeable and you usually scrape this off before icing it. sugar is hygroscopic (it absorbs moisture) so when you freeze things, the moisture will migrate to where there is a higher concentration of sugar - to the crust. so when you thaw, the top crust gets a bit sticky and soggy.

i wouldn't change what you're doing as long as it doesn't bother you aesthetically. if you unwrap and thaw, you chance having pretty dry cupcakes as the moisture has migrated to the surface and now you're letting it evaporate. evaporation (loss of moisture) is the main cause of staling.

i'm not trying to contradict you k8memphis, but if you've got ice crystals on the surface, they were once inside your product...they don't just magically appear between your cake and the plastic wrap. same goes for ice cream. eat a few bites and leave the carton in the freezer for a couple of weeks and take a look inside sometime...the ice cream will have tons of ice crystals on top and the ice cream itself will have changed texture from losing all the suspended water which was once part of the emulsion. this is just what happens.

also with home freezers, they cycle through temp changes much more inefficiently than commercial freezers, so the thaw-freeze-thaw-freeze helps to accelerate the ice crystal formation on products in your freezers.

edited to clarify?

Edited by alanamoana (log)
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We are fine to disagree in a professional courteous way, Alana. If baking were a gemstone it would have so many facets sometimes even in agreement we can be on opposite sides. Umm, the crystals I am referencing are the ones that can form from slightly defrosting and refreezing as the freezer doors are opening and closing during it's stay inside. Which is why I double triple wrap to insulate.

And sure there's plenty of moisture inside the cake that re-distributes with freezing and thawing. And you are correct that the very carmelized top skin can become swampy and yes that moisture comes from within the cake. And this is a desired result so that the rest of the outside crust of the cake remoistens after baking. But you always cut off that swampy mess on top. And if the cake is not seriously overbaked there's enough moisture for all of it to remain moist after all this.

Edited by K8memphis (log)
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