Decorated sponge sheets without a freezer?

[hansjoakim]

Hi,

I've been asked to make a cake for a friend of mine. I'd like to make something special, and want to use a decorated sponge sheet to get that eye-catching look. The recipes I've seen for decorated sponge sheets all say that the paste should be frozen (to make it firm enough) before cake batter is poured over the sheet. Now, I only have a tiny freezer in which a half-sized sheet pan (30cm x 40cm) doesn't fit...

Is it possible to make these decorated sheets without using a freezer to firm the paste? Is it sufficient to place the sheet in the refrigerator instead, or would the paste most likely be too runny to yield nice, even ribbon patterns in the final sheet?

Thanks for any suggestions and tips

Edited June 4, 2010 by hansjoakim (log)

[HQAntithesis]

Refrigerating it is fine in my experience. I've even just let it sit at room temperature then just poured a joconde over it. It does depend on how important it is to you to have a very sharp design (eg: stencilled designs or straight lines): if that's the case then it's better you have it as cold as possible in the fridge so you lower the chance of damaging the design when spreading the sponge on top.

[Lisa Shock]

You can always rig up an independent chilling setup with another sheet pan holding lots of ice that is cater-wrapped to hold the ice in. Just set the pan with the stencil on top of the wrapped ice, and then into the fridge, if possible.

[hansjoakim]

Hi HQ and Lisa,

Thank you ever so much! I think I'll try both methods and see how the design turns out.