Let your cake rest
When you bake a cake, your entire house fills with a divine smell that instantly makes you hungry. When you take it out of the oven, you naturally want to dig in right away, but wait just a little longer. You should always let cakes rest for a while, and this is why:
Fruit
For a fruit pie, it’s important that the filling is nice and firm. If you cut into the pie immediately, the filling will be warm and runny, and will simply run back out of the pie. What a waste. Let the pie cool for at least a few hours (I know, torture) so that the starch and sugars in the filling can firm up again. Sugar can get much hotter than water, and because there is so much sugar in a fruit filling, it takes a really long time to cool down. Sorry I don’t have better news for you.
Cake
What about cakes? You should let those cool for a while too, but you can dig in much sooner than with a fruit pie. With a cake, it’s important that the butter cools down a little so it’s easier to slice. If you cut into a cake immediately, it will turn into a soggy mess and you’ll have crumbs everywhere. After half an hour, you can eat it, unless you’re also adding frosting. In that case, it’s important that it has really cooled to room temperature so the frosting doesn’t melt.
Cheesecake
And what about cheesecake? That needs the longest time in the refrigerator—preferably even an entire night. The filling is often still runny when you cut into it warm, and it needs to set completely. Cheesecake is often even tastier on the second or third day, because all the flavors have more time to meld. Patience is a virtue…
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