Baking cakes...

There is need for you to specify the type of cake you are actually talking about. The shelf life of any type of cake is subject to the following factors: -

1. cake type e.g chocolate, madeira, carrot etc. Generally cakes with a lot of moisture e.g chocolate cakes have a shorter shelf life than cakes with less moisture e.g madeira.
2. The quality of ingredients used to produce such cakes – garbage in garbage out.
3. The climatic conditions of your environment e.g tropical countries have high temperature and high humidity conditions which generally promotes faster deteoriation of food.
4. The hygienic conditions of your production and storage facilities.
5. Addition of chemical food grade preservatives – designed to extend the shelf life.
6. # Consistent availbility of electricity/power.

Madeira cakes can be kept in an airtight container for 2 weeks maximum in the fridge of frozen for 2 months.
Chocolate cakes, carrot cakes will keep for a week in an airtight container in the fridge or frozen for 2mths.
Rich fruit cakes will keep in the fridge for 6mths or freezer for more than a year.

I encourage you to do a little experiment, bake a sample of your cake and deliberately store it out of a fridge/freezer and see how long it will remain fresh. That will give you an idea of how long/how short your cake can store. For me its a maximum of 5days for madeira cakes but what applies to me can’t apply to you cos the conditions are not the same. Hope this helps.

Hi there xclusive,

Thank you so much for your reply…

Yes, I am aware of the different types of cakes and I can relate to the problems you are talking about. The two main cakes that I bake are chocolate and lemon and I don’t use butter, I use oil (my customers buy from me because my cakes are considered light and good and I only use the best ingredients available on the market, for example Lindt and Valrhona for chocolate). I don’t use any additives and I tend to go organic sometimes. The other day, I baked my chocolate fondant cake and ganached it, kept it in the fridge for 3 days and it was as good as the first day, if not better :-) But for dry cakes, I am not sure it will be as good on the third day.
Muffins are not as fresh on the second day and I noticed that even the regular buttercream (butter + icing sugar) is not as good on the 2nd day. The texture becomes different…
I live in a humid climate so that does not help!

Hello Dina,

If you use sugar syrup on your cakes (10 mins after they come out of the oven, skewer them all over the top and brush them with the sugar syrup), then they will be good to eat up to 2 weeks after covering with sugarpaste. I do that, but I use butter in my cake recipes, not oil. Most of my recipes are based on Peggy Porschen recipes. So, e.g. my vanilla one is like a madeira. The chocolate one too, but I brush vanilla syrup on it, as chocolate and vanilla go well together. I must admit that I was a bit shocked (but it was good to know) when my customers told me they were eating my cakes 2 weeks after I delivered it, as that would mean they were eating it over 3 weeks after they were baked. For oil-based cakes, I make an uncovered carrot cake based on Delia Smith’s Ultimate Carrot cake with Mascarpone Icing, but I would never consider covering that with sugarpaste (I don’t think it’s stable enough and certainly couldn’t use the mascarpone as a filling). Maybe I haven’t experimented enough with oil-based cakes. Personally, I find butter-based sponge cakes tastier. Also, they are more filling (not dense, but very moist after the sugar syrup) and so a smaller portion size goes further. I have a blog about the recipe I use, and the sugar syrup on my ClearlyCake website.
BTW: I never freeze my cakes. I like to provide my customers with freshly-baked cakes. I know that cakes can taste as good after being frozen, but I don’t have the quantity of orders to warrant freezing them.

Hi Helenna,

Thank you for your response… Great idea for the syrup… But does that make the cake overly sweet? Do you then reduce the sugar in the cake itself? I will check Peggy Porschen’s recipes and I will definitely go on your site later on today :-) I will get back with you later…

Great post!Thanks for a nice discovery.In connection,the Twinkies, cream-filled snack cake are not deceased – long live the Twinkies. A successful bid was tendered as Hostess is in bankruptcy court, so the snack cakes seem to be on the fast track to return to stores. Buy your Twinkies online now with a personal loan.

To be successful in baking a good cake, it requires a certain degree of care, aside from the knowledge of doing it. The use of the best affordable ingredients helps to achieve this. Trying to do the mixing and baking in a hurry is not recommended because it will only lead to failure. As the saying goes, “Haste makes waste.” The need for accurate weighing and measuring of the ingredients should not be stressed too much, for example a round teaspoon of baking powder instead of a level one can be doom to a cake. Also, avoid the temptation of thinking that an extra egg or a little more sugar will make a much better cake.