This information is for inspirational purposes only. To learn more about Frost Artisan Bakery’s current menu and custom baked goods, please contact us.
Summer is the season for outdoor entertaining, from birthday parties to casual poolside gatherings with family and friends. No celebration, regardless of the type or guest list, is complete without something sweet.
Our customers frequently ask us how to keep desserts cold outside during the summer. Below are our suggestions for protecting your treats from summer’s high temperatures and humidity.
Keeping Your Desserts Cold in Hot Weather
You’ve planned a fabulous backyard summer party, complete with a dessert buffet to wow your guests. The only problem? How to keep desserts cold outside in high temperatures and humidity. Below are a few simple tips and techniques for beating the heat with your desserts:
- Keep desserts in the shade: This may go without saying, but the cooler the place you can keep your desserts, the better off they’ll be. Place a table under a tree’s branches or a beach umbrella to shield as many of your treats as possible from the sun.*
- Set up an inflatable buffet: A handy find for summer entertaining, an inflatable buffet keeps food cold even in the hottest temperatures. Fill the buffet with ice and set your desserts on plates on top of the ice. When you’re done entertaining and the ice is all melted, you can use the leftover liquid to water your potted plants.
- Keep refrigerated desserts in the kitchen: When it’s absolutely too hot to keep desserts outdoors, use your kitchen to your advantage. You can set up a creative dessert display indoors on your kitchen counter, which enables your guests to escape the heat outdoors for some sweet cooling relief indoors.
*Note: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises leaving food out for no longer than two hours without refrigeration.
Good Desserts for Hot Weather
Some of the best desserts that hold up in hot weather are those that are prebaked and require minimal refrigeration. Unfrosted cakes, cookies, pastry-based baked tarts, and baked fruit pies make excellent choices for summer gatherings. Baked desserts that let the season’s freshest fruits star are stellar for seasonal celebrations.
Frosted cakes with buttercream frosting can’t be left out in the sun. The same goes for anything containing whipped cream, which can easily break down in heat and humidity, or anything that may melt when exposed to high temperatures. That’s not to say you can’t serve desserts such as ice cream cakes as long as you can keep them in the freezer until you’re ready to serve them.
Tips for Transporting Desserts
Good desserts for hot weather are only good if you can get them to your party without them falling apart. Here are some ideas for safely transporting your treats:
- Cake or cupcake carriers work well for getting cakes and cupcakes to your destination safely. If you don’t have one, leaving your dessert in the container in which you baked it is the best idea.
- To keep the frosting on a cake from sticking to coverings like plastic wrap, insert several toothpicks several inches apart at regular intervals along the edge and center of the cake. Gently place the plastic wrap like a tent over the tops of the toothpicks so that it won’t stick to the frosting.
- To prevent a cake from moving around in the trunk of your vehicle during transport, place a rubber bath mat or an antislip cutting board mat on the floor of the trunk.
- If you’re transporting cupcakes, place the decorated cupcakes back into the wells of muffin tins. Crumple pieces of aluminum foil and place the pieces around the bases of the cupcakes to keep the frosting above the level of the muffin tin.
Sweeten Your Summer with Desserts from Frost
No matter what occasion you’re celebrating, you’ll find desserts perfect for your party at Frost Artisan Bakery. Stop in today for fabulous cakes, cookies, tarts, and more.
