How I Kept my Buttercream from Melting at the Farmers Market in 90 Degree Heat
How to Keep Cakes Cool in 90 Degree Heat
The biggest fear of selling cakes at a farmers market is the buttercream on our cakes melting.
Just picture it. You worked so hard to perfect your products, staying up all night only to show up the next day at the market and YOUR CAKES TURN INTO A SOUPY MESS.
A nightmare, I KNOW! 😭
However, after you read how I kept my buttercream from melting at the farmers market in 90 degree heat, you’ll be sleeping just as peacefully as me! 🙌🏾
I’m not going to make this long and just get straight to the point and tell you how to keep cakes cool at farmers markets. As a thank you, please leave me a comment below letting me know if this is helpful or not! 😊
How I Kept my Cakes Cool… Last Year
My solution to this problem last year was to sacrifice a few of my products by leaving them out on the table so customers could see. I left the rest of my cakes in the cooler where they could stay nice and UNMELTED.
This worked well, but I wasn’t the happiest about losing out on product to sell!
My farmers market setup last year
So this year I knew I needed a solution to keep my cakes cool at the farmers market AND still allow them to be visible to my customers.
This is what I came up with!
Solution 1: Bakery Display Case
A bakery display case is the perfect way to display our cakes in a professional manner. I mean, that is what they were created for after all!
So I knew I wanted this for my setup at the market. So I bought it!
I was considering refrigerated cases, but was not sure if the size would work on my table and whether or not I was going to have electricity to plug it in!
I had solved my first problem of having my products visible with the display case, but it wasn’t refrigerated.
Related: 5 Must-Haves for Your Farmers Market Setup
Solution 2: Use Ice to Keep Cakes Cool
So now to solve problem two: how do I keep my cakes from turning into that dreaded soupy mess inside my beautiful case?
The solution came quickly to me: Make it refrigerated with ice!
Easy enough.
I’m so smart and I was proud to figure that out! 🤪
But wait a minute, do I just pour ice into the bottom of the case? Do I wrap ice slabs around the display case tray?
No, that won’t work because the ice will melt and soak into my products. 👎🏽
I had to do a little more thinking because there was no way I was giving up that display case. 😆
Happy me with my NEW display case!
So I started searching Amazon for dry ice to see what I could find and after a few minutes of searching I found reusable ice packs!
They seemed absolutely perfect for what I needed so I went through all the different options and read the reviews and ultimately decided to go with these!
Ice packs to keep cakes cool
They are made with dry ice and reusable. They are marketed to stay cold for up to TWO DAYS! What?!?!
Put them in my cart NEOW! 👇🏽
The reviews said they didn’t actually last that long, but “only” lasted about 9 hours for them…
My market was only 4 hours….
Yeah. GIVE EM TO MEEEEE!!!! 🤲🏽
These are special ice packs that have one side of plastic and one side made of mesh.
You soak the packs to let it absorb the water and it holds it, unlike regular ice packs that would just melt and leak!
To ensure I would have the best outcome, I laid the ice packs with the plastic part down on a towel.
This is so any condensation will be absorbed by the towel and the water won’t leak out of the mesh side.
This worked so well because as the ice “melts” over time, the water is still being retained inside the ice packs! 🙌🏾
SHOP: My Farmers Market Essentials
Keep Cakes Cool at Farmers Markets
So I bought everything and put my idea to the test.
Cake display with ice packs
While I was setting up, I realized I was going to need another layer of protection. The ice packs and case were perfect, but only the part of the case where the ice was, was actually cooling.
I solved this new conundrum by adding in a portable fan to circulate the cooI air throughout the case. GENIUS! 🤓
Added a fan to keep my cakes cool
I sat my bakery case and the ice packs outside with a few test products for 4 hours.
Would you believe what happened?
NOT ONE CAKE MELTED! 🙌🏾 😮💨
Cakes NOT MELTING at my farmers market 💅🏽
It worked!!!! But if you’re like me, sometimes things can work for the test run but not hold up during the market.
Long story short, it worked just as perfectly at my actual farmers market!
Cake slice for the farmers market
I solved the issue of how to prevent my cakes from melting at the farmers market for me and I hope this solution helps you too! Feel free to leave a comment if you found this helpful!
