Advance Preparation

[viva]

I've been reading a lot, both on this site as well as a number of cookbooks about advance preparation for desserts. This is, of course, saving me for the 30++ Thanksgiving weekend with multiple nights of dinners and an unholy number of desserts that need to be made.

My question is where do you draw the line of advance preparation? Are there rules that need to be adhered to (such as "never try to freeze anything with pineapple in it" or "don't pre-assemble a cake with a liqueur syrup soaked in the layers", etc.)?

What I've got so far:

- Premade all of my fruit pies/tarts (apple/prune, pear/cranberry, marionberry, shaker lemon, mincemeat, and fig), assembled & in the freezer - waiting to be baked from frozen (actually, I like doing this now as the fruit selection now is definitely better than it will be in late November)

- Premade all of my cake liqueur syrups, buttercream frostings, fruit purees, (what I call cake "ancillary items") - ready to be defrosted (rebeaten if necessary) and used to assemble cakes

- Premade cookie dough on the sheets and ready to be baked

- Pierre Herme's Concorde cake and Pave cakes (both of which the cookbook indicated can/should be frozen)

- Premade fruit cake (well, this one was obvious - it'll keep for years)

- Premade and baked quick breads (cranberry, orange) that will just defrost and serve

What I'm wondering:

- Have I done anything wrong - am I in for any nasty surprises?

- Can I take things a step further - e.g. bake the cakes, soak the cake layers in liqueur syrup, layer 'em with buttercream and top with rolled fondant - and then just stick the whole assembled thing in the freezer for a month? Some of the cakes I've chosen are a maple pear spice cake, an apricot pumpkin cake, and of course the e-gullet tweaked chocolate cake. One of the cakes has a whipped cream filling instead of buttercream - I'm thinking anything with whipped cream would not be a good advance prep candidate - but the rest are the neoclassic and silk meringue buttercreams, as well as chocolate ganache from RLB's Cake Bible.

- Anything else?

Many thanks for any help!!!

Edited October 18, 2006 by viva (log)

[Tweety69bird]

Woah. Very impressive list... nice job so far. I don't see any nasty surprises awaiting from your already prepped list.

I would say that the cakes you want to layer with buttercream can be done and frozen like that, but not with the fondant. You're going to have to do that close to serving day.. maybe a day or 2 in advance, but if your cake is masked and ready to be wrapped in fondant, all you have to do is defrost and wrap. I second no whipped cream in the freezer.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[RuthWells]

Wow, Viva, this is positively inspirational! I too do a monstrous amount of baking during the holiday season, and do do a lot of stuff ahead..... but not THIS far ahead! You've inspired me to start on my menu planning and at least get some buttercreams and cookie dough into the freezer.

[viva]

This is what happens when you give a Type-A obsessive compulsive consultant 8 weeks off from work and nothing to do...so I created a project plan for Thanksgiving Desserts. Of course, the more I plan in advance, the more I actually end up making. Work expands to fill the time available.

Anyway, thanks for the input!

I'm figuring I can bake the three cakes (eG chocolate, pear spice, apricot pumpkin), and assemble the ones using buttercream. That will save a lot of time and heavy duty on the standing mixer. I think I can also do a poured ganache topping on the chocolate ones, which I believe can also be done ahead and frozen, then just make it glossy again using a hair dryer.

What about phyllo dough or puff pastry tarts? My mind says logically that, since I can buy the phyllo and puff pastry frozen anyway, what's the harm in thawing it, putting some fruit in the middle of it, and freezing it again to bake later?

Out of curiousity, any fruit pies that *shouldn't* be frozen? Maybe stuff with citrus or eggs? (Of course, I froze the Shaker Lemon tarts, which contains both and not much else, so here's crossing my fingers on the answer to that question.) Because I'm thinking from here on out, I just bake a mess of pies any time a good fruit is at it's best in season, freeze and then bake them when I feel like it.

[amccomb]

- Can I take things a step further - e.g. bake the cakes, soak the cake layers in liqueur syrup, layer 'em with buttercream and top with rolled fondant - and then just stick the whole assembled thing in the freezer for a month?  Some of the cakes I've chosen are a maple pear spice cake, an apricot pumpkin cake, and of course the e-gullet tweaked chocolate cake.  One of the cakes has a whipped cream filling instead of buttercream - I'm thinking anything with whipped cream would not be a good advance prep candidate - but the rest are the neoclassic and silk meringue buttercreams, as well as chocolate ganache from RLB's Cake Bible.

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I've soaked, filled, and iced cakes and frozen them, no problem. I thaw in the fridge for a day. I wouldn't try the fondant, though.

As for the whipped cream, I use the stabilized whipped cream in RLB's Cake Bible, and it freezes fine.

What about pumpkin pie? Can that be frozen whole and baked from frozen?

[alanamoana]

damn, how many freezers do you have?

[reenicake]

Sounds great! Fruit pies freeze excellently, egg ones are sort of iffy depending on how much extra liquid they contain. I don't freeze custards like pastry cream, and no fondant either.

Yes to freezing ganache and phyllo pastries, but not anything with fresh uncooked fruit in it, which would collapse when defrosted and soak through the phylllo/puff pastry. But nut fillings freeze well, as do cooked fillings (to wit, frozen spanakopita.)

My problem is, I don't have enough freezer space! If only the weather could be relied upon to stay at 35 degrees, I could put it all on the fire escape.

[viva]

I've been filling up the spare freezer in the basement I've also been making preserves, so the spare fridge is getting kind of full too.

I was thinking "no" on trying to do any custard or similar pies, like pumpkin, in advance. Also "no" on anything cheesecake related. Something tells me the texture would lose something.

Good to know about the stabilized whipped cream and phyllo! For the whipped cream, I am making the Cake Bible raspberry whipped cream filling (using that awesome cordon rose raspberry jam that has the three freaking quarts of raspberries in it) - I'll look and see if I can make the filling with the stabilized whipped base, although I forget the recipe as I have not looked at it since I made the jam.

Thanks for the advice, y'all!

[alanamoana]

cheesecake can actually freeze reasonably well. i think it depends on your formula because it can crack and weep when defrosted, but not necessarily all the time. the cheesecake factory ships frozen cheesecake, but that makes me think they use some kind of gum or gelatin type stuff in their ingredients to keep them stable.

[Pam R]

I freeze cheesecake all the time. Worst thing that happens if it cracks is you top it with something.

[viva]

Good to know - thanks everybody! I feel much more in control of my holiday cooking this year.