Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Does anyone have an answer to this problem. I made a birthday cake for a customer. It was fine on the day but a couple of days later when the left over cake was cut it was found to have some mould on the bottom of the cake. I phoned a friend who runs her own business who has just experienced the same problem on just one of her 6 cakes that were delivered the same day. I covered my sponge cake in ganache and sugarpaste, but didn’t cover the board it sat on, apart from a dollop of butter icing. Can anyone give me some advice so I can prevent this happening again please. Should I seal the bottom of the cake also? Thanks Angie

Hi Angie

This is something does happen particularly during hot and humid weather. You are saying this occurred on a partially eaten cake. Once the cake had been breached, it is exposed to the atmosphere, to people handling it and breathing on it. It could even be someone’s licked their finger just to scrape a little taste of it. Once exposed it is highly prone to contamination and mould growth.

You can take certain precautions such as thoroughly cleaning the Cake board and all transferring implements with a little vodka. A parchment barrier will also help. If you wish to seal the bottom of the cake with ganache, that’s fine too.

Remember that the Cake was handled by lots of people after it left you. Advice to your customers should include handling and storage information to minimise moulding. Unfortunately these things do happen.

Hello ‘madeitwithlove’ thank you for your advice i must admit i was a bit devastated when i was shown the pictures on the bottom of my cake, but now following your advice I will take these precautions and hopefully it won’t happen again.

Thank you so much for your help

Many Blessings to you Angie

Hi Angie

I feel so sorry that you have experienced this incident. I can relate to your devastation but please don’t go beating yourself up. In hot weather it is hard to keep a good shelf life for all perishable foods and cake is no exception. Even industrial bakeries can be affected despite the fact they use all types of preservatives to enhance shelf life.
From the description you have just given, it sounds like the bottom of the cake sweated, trapping the moisture. This created a perfect home for airborn microbes to propagate the mould.

I hope you’re ok 🙂