how to freeze birthday cake

{supplies}

Of course, you're gonna need some leftover birthday cake. Mine was pretty rich and filling, so we had three quarters left. You'll want to make sure the cake is already cold. Like, straight out of the fridge cold. We don't want smeared icing now or later. Also get some parchment paper and a large baking sheet. Alternatively you could use a silpat instead of the parchment paper. You could also try placing the cake directly on the pan as I don't think they'd stick that terribly but I didn't try it, so I don't know.

{method}

phase one

Cut up your cake into portion sizes you'll want to eat later. You could totally freeze a whole half but then you'll also have to unfreeze a whole half to have some, so it really depends on how many people plan on enjoying this cake later as to whether you want to slice it or not. Personally, I'm a big fan of measuring portions out before freezing. I do it with everything. It just makes it easier to take out what you need and ensures that there's no overindulgence or leftovers.

Take your slices and arrange them on the baking sheet making sure they don't touch. This is the pretty part. Commencing pretty slice pictures!

{method}

phase two

Put the tray of cake into the freezer. Check out my highly advanced system of plastic containers/pan holder-uppers. Leave your cake in there till it's frozen solid (or as solid as cake can get). I think I left mine for a good 6-8 hours. I thought about leaving it overnight, but then I realized I was just being lazy.

Once the cake is frozen, throw it into some freezer bags. I mean, don't throw it. The icing will break off if you toss it around. So hold the bag open with one hand and gingerly (as if handling a bomb) place it inside. Then even more gingerly try to squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible and seal the top.

There's two of us so I put two cake slices per bag. If there's four of you... well, you know. This way, when we want cake, I just have to take one bag out.

This is the most important step: put the bags back into the freezer. What's the point otherwise? I would make sure they sit on top of whatever you've got in there. Don't go throwing a whole roast on them. I don't think that'll end well.

Do not ask me how long they'll last in the freezer. This is cake we're talking about here. Are you honestly going to store them for longer than three weeks?! Do you really have that much will-power? Cuz hats off to you if you do. We're currently trying to "eat better" and "be healthier" so we plan on indulging in cake only on Saturdays. Therefore, the longest these babies are going to be in the freezer will be three weeks. I'll let you know if anything terrible happens to the third week cakes, but I think they'll come out just fine.

We tasted two slices after one week of being frozen. I took them out of the freezer, put them on the plates we wanted to eat off of, and let them unthaw. Please note that the cake and the buttercream unthaw at different rates. We ate the cake after it had been out for an hour and 45 minutes and could easily be cut into with a fork. We definitely rushed the buttercream, though, as it was still a little solid and not very pleasant eating (to me; Idle Husband thought it tasted the same). I couldn't eat a lot of the buttercream, so I left it on the plate for another 3-4 hours. At that point, the buttercream had softened up a lot and tasted just as it did the day I made it. Lesson learned: don't worry about whether you can get a fork into the cake or not, base all of your thawing judgement on the buttercream.

The cake, including the cream cheese filling, was delicious as well. It was still moist and flavourful and didn't taste at all of freezer (you know that freezer, I'm-not-fresh taste). And I love that it's frozen and I can easily unthaw just what we need when we want it. It's so much safer better than having a whole cake around with just the two of us.

{Get the cake recipe here}