Does This Classic GBBO Sheet Pan Trick Really Cool Off Cakes?
Whether you're a professional or a home chef, every baker knows that one of the easiest ways to ruin a cake is icing it before it's completely cooled. Imagine: You spend hours preparing your cake, from meticulously measuring the ingredients to folding them all together into a smooth batter to nailing the perfect cook time. You pull it out of the oven and, in all your excitement, decide to start frosting it right away. Bad idea. The icing starts melting, running off the cake, and turning what should have been a beautifully iced dessert into a sloppy, unsalvageable mess.
Ideally, you should let your cake cool for at least two to three hours, ideally overnight if possible (via Baking Kneads). But what if you don't have time to wait that long? Or what if you just don't want to? As Eater notes, the bakers on "The Great British Baking Show" often use a hack that supposedly cuts down your cake's cooling time. But does it actually work? Here's what you need to know about the trick, including the equipment you need for it and whether or not it's worth trying for yourself.
Waving a sheet pan over your cake can apparently cool it faster
According to Eater, one of the most common things you'll see on "The Great British Baking Show" is contestants frantically waving baking sheets over their cakes to quickly cool them off in time for judging. "There will inevitably be a delirious scramble to cool a cake through the velocity of a baking sheet and the sheer power of elbow grease," the writer, Dayna Evans, explains. Curious if the trick actually works in real life, Evans decided to test it out herself. She baked a control sponge cake, which she let cool naturally. Then she baked another that she cooled by waving a sheet pan over the top of it. The result? The control cake took two hours to drop 132 degrees, while the other cake dropped 66 degrees in just 10 minutes using the pan-fanning hack.
If you're not up for an arm workout, Cakebe notes you can also put your cake in front of a fan or open window to mimic the breezy cooling effect of waving a baking sheet. Regardless of the method you choose, it seems like a pretty solid solution to cooling a cake quickly.