DH- Hot food in fridge!!!

[WorldsOnFire]

Last night DH made a cheese cake.

DH is a stickler for following instructions. So cooked for 30 mins at 180 and threw it straight from the oven into the fridge. It said on the recipe ‘remove from oven and refrigerate for X hours’ he left it in overnight.

I didn’t realise this. I would have given it 20-30 mins on the side first to cool first. Anyway I’ve been eating out of the fridge this morning - milk, cheese...etc all looks and smells totally fine but now I’m worrying that it’s been too warm all evening/night because of this cake.

I’m 5.5 months pregnant and at higher risk of ‘picking up bugs’ due to stomach meds I’m on. Not said anything to DH as aware I’m maybe over thinking it.

AIBU? Is the rest of the food in the fridge totally fine? I need a head wobble!

• our fridge is pretty cold in general. Stuff sometimes freezes if too close to the back.

*Also, I’m not annoyed at DH at all. I’m just sat here having a bit of a worry to myself. There’s very conflicting opinions online - I googled it.

Usually I would shrug it off- just more sensitive atm as pregnant

I would think both milk and cheese would be fine.

It's not a good idea to put stuff hot into the fridge, obviously, but back in the day you could store cheese and milk on a cool shelf and it'd be fine. It's things like shellfish I'd be worried about, and I'm guessing they're off the menu anyway right now!

@SarahAndQuack

No selfish- there is raw meat and yoghurt in there though. I mean it was a standard sized cake, so I imagine cooled pretty fast.

Honestly, nothing at all will happen. The cake will have cooled very quickly in the fridge. Don’t worry.

*shell fish

I would let it cool first. I'd be worried about cracking the glass in the fridge!

If the fridge alarm didn't go off, I'd have thought you'd be fine. But if it tastes weird, Leave it for him and buy yourself fresh if you can. Not worth the worry.

Up.to date advice is that modern fridges should be able to cope with situations like this. They have the ability to work that bit harder to keep the temp down low enough for other food. If your food looks and smells ok there's no reason to think it won't be. Try not to worry.

Cheese will be absolutely fine.

With milk, it's best not to keep it in the door, in general.
Keeping it inside the fridge itself will probably be a good idea in the long run if you don't already do it.

A temporary rise of a few degrees will be OK.

I'd have thought the biggest danger would be to the cake, which probably doesn't live rapid temperature changes. But that's a risk of cracking or being a bit dry, rather than being dangerous.

Cheese doesn't really "go off" it either goes mouldy or dries out. If pregnant obviously don't eat mould but it can't harm you in normal circumstances. Milk is obvious if it's off as it smells, you're fine to drink if not and drinking milk that's barely on the turn won't do you any harm either.
Maybe stay away from cooked meats if you're really that fearful but I think you're over thinking it.
Obviously point out to DH that putting food that's nearly 200° in the FRIDGE straight from the oven is a bit dim.

@Bufferingkisses
I’d read that- I actually saw the DOH in the US says food should be put hot into the fridge- but lots of other articles say no.

@WooMaWang
😬 It’s sank a bit in the middle 😂 but It’s not for me to eat and I’m not going to criticise DH’s very motivated attempt 👍🏻

The milk is craven dale so maybe less prone to going off easily as more filtered. We do keep it in the door but it smells and tastes fine.

The idea of leaving food to cool before refrigerating is very outdated - it's from an era when refrigeration tech was nowhere near as advanced as it is today. Modern fridges will have no problem with what your DH's done.

The current food hygiene advice is to cool food as quickly as possible, so yes, putting hot food directly into the fridge is the most up to date guideline.

If stuff freezes indoor fridge though, that is a separate issue and suggests your thermostat has broken.

I'd suggest a mechanical fridge thermometer and maintaining the internal temp at around 4 degrees

It’s only advisory on the basis it can bring temporary temperature up but it would be a degree or two for a very short amount of time and would even then have to be VERY hot and large. Cheese etc. is fine out of the fridge anyway don’t worry!

Absolutely nothing is going to happen here, but why was he cooking a cheesecake?

I didn’t know advice to cool first had changed and we can merrily bung hot things into the fridge !
I too would worry the cheesecake might have cracked and/or shrunk without cooking first never mind raised temperature!
As for advice re other foods in fridge given someone has talked about a fridge alarm (which I have not even heard of) I’m not best placed for advice clearly !
Good luck op and congrats.

Cooling not cooking.
Baked cheesecake far surpasses non baked imo. Love it.

Much better to cool it rapidly in the fridge than gradually in the kitchen. Modern fridges can handle this no problem.

but why was he cooking a cheesecake?

I imagine it was a baked cheesecake

Your fridge food will be fine bte

This should really be fine. The fridge simply cycled on more often than usual to cope with the increase in temperature.

Leaving it all night will have been fine. The temperature in the fridge may have raised very slightly at the beginning but it will have had plenty of time to settle back to normal and won't have affected anything else. What you really shouldn't do is keeping opening the fridge to put more and more hot items in. That doesn't give it a chance to cool anything down.

What you really shouldn't do is keeping opening the fridge to put more and more hot items in. That doesn't give it a chance to cool anything down.

It's amazing how many people don't get this, and that it applies to ovens as well. I was at a church lunch once, went into the kitchen and there were five or six women taking turns opening the oven door to look in to see why the roast was taking so long to cook.