last thursday i bake 2 12x18 cakes for my cousins birthday cake. one was a white cake the other chocoalte. i myself am a box baker, but with some modifications. instead of water i always use milk, and on the white mix i use the whole egg rather than just the white. now like i said i baked the cakes on thursday, carved and iced on friday, party was saturday. yesturday my cousin calls me that she went to get a piece of the cake that was left over and she said that the cake had gone bad. this shocked the heck out of me, i've never had that happened to me. can anyone think of what might have happened? i'm totally stumped!

chris

Did she say how it had gone bad? Moldy, stale, dry, etc? Was it kept in the fridge? What did you frost it with?


I usually won't leave a cake out longer than 3 days. If it's not gone by then, I freeze what's left. Especially lately because it's been so warm in my house.

Was it refrigerated from the time you baked it ' til it was cut and eaten ?

If it was refrigerated the whole time, then I should not have gone bad.

If not, then it would.

I have to agree with Texas_Rose. 3 days is our house rule, too.

In fact, fridge leftovers (like meatloaf from supper) only have a 24 hour lifespan at our house. That's just our personal-picky-rule!

Unless we're talking about a bag of chips or loaf of store bread, I have no desire to eat something that's been sitting around for a week. Logic does sort of lend toward a fresh baked good only lasting a few days...

Just my 2 pence! Best of luck with the situation.

i baked it late thursday night, allowed it to cool over night with tea towels covering it. in the morning i covered in seran wrap, frosted them that night for the next day. as for the left overs i'm not sure how they stored it? i told her to put it in the fridge.

3 days out in Texas heat yeah i could imagine that a cake could start to mold. I refrigerate every cake i bake, its kept cold until its delivered then its up to the consumer to store the product properly.

I always fridge too after my make is done cooling, I will keep the cake in the fridge even in short time here & there if I'm not done decorating it & doing something else in the mean time. In short I fridge as much as I can. On another note my mom knew a baker that would use tea towels to cool & place cakes & goodies on. She kept having people saying that here cakes had a funny taste or went bad. Apparently she found out that the det. & or dryer sheets she used in her laundry gave the cakes this odd taste. Could this have possibly happened to you?

I personally will not eat cake or cupcakes after 3 or 4 days. This is why I try to bake as close to the event as I can. After 4 days any left overs get thrown away.

She was eating cake that was cut and served on Saturday the following Wednesday or Thursday? I can't say I'm shocked that it went bad... I personally would have trashed it monday evening.

I'm with you aligotmatt, That cake should have been tossed on monday.

I'm with you aligotmatt, That cake should have been tossed on monday.

Maybe so I mean maybe it shoulda been tossed but I had someone call me & tell me years ago that leftovers of a cake of mine had gone bad. To this day I am purely mortified about that.

All I can think of in my case was maybe my simple syrup might not have been fresh enough. I had vanilla in it and I just don't know what happened but when cake goes bad it ain't pretty.

I want to offer a possibility in this case. The tea towels. I know they were very very clean but still they might impart things to the cake that might not enhance longevity. The Health Department is always really aggressive about dishes being left to air dry & stuff. So just a thought.

I wouldn't eat week-old cake. Yuck.

Ditto on the HD..... we're not even allowed to have cloth anything.... no dish towels at all. We have to use paper towels for everything.

how can cake go bad? What, it rob a bank or something?

If you mean stale, well, yeh, a week old cake would be hard and yecky! I wouldn't eat it....

It smells like death and the hot place. Stale is a kindness compared to cake that goes bad.

I don't think she stored it in the fridge, like you told her to.

Indy, I usually always agree with you but I have to say that I wouldn't eat a cake that was cut and served on Saturday all the way until Wednesday. If there was still cake leftover after the shower, I would eat it up until Monday at the very latest. I'm really anal about food being fresh, but I know some are more so than I am. Also, once a cake has been "touched" or "breathed on" much, I won't eat it. At the baby shower, the cake was cut, then someone (maybe the same person, maybe someone else) boxed up the leftovers (this may have been all you - in which case this wouldn't apply) and then you transported it home, put it in the fridge and ate it 4 days later. I couldn't do that. That's too much activity for one cake in my opinion! There is a difference in making/freezing/decorating a cake and once you've cut and served it. Just my opinion.

I agree with deb; if it's in the fridge, it can be good for a surprisingly long time. We left a big leftover of my daughter's bday cake (Sylvia Weinstock's yellow cake) in the fridge and ate on it for, I kid you not, about 2 weeks, and it tasted great the whole time. I was amazed.

I NEVER leave cake out on the counter--except to cool, then they go in the freezer to chill until I fill and frost. It grosses me out to leave any cake sitting out, even though I know it's fine. I just always wrap it well and fridge it, then if I want a piece that's not cold, I put my serving in the microwave for a quick zap to bring it up to "room temp". [/list]

yeah, if it's kept in the fridge, and a mix with all the preservatives etc. I'm not sure cake kept in room-temp all week will still be good after a week....

Southerncake, I do have to add that my own b-day party is tomorrow, and I am making a 14" and 8" cake for it, and there's only going to be about 15 people there! I'm doing it specifically so I can eat the leftovers later! However, I totally plan on freezing the leftovers that last more than 1 or 2 days........

Especially if the cake was left out of the fridge, I can see how it could go bad in the summer heat.

HAHAHA... I am picturing Brittany Spears-esque pictures of a cake gone bad..

I am thinking the whole leaving it out overnight with just a tea towel over it contributed to its demise. You should remove your cake from the pan 10 minutes after you take it out of the oven. The pan will keep the heat inside your cake and cook it a little more as it sits out, and your cake needs to breathe to allow the escape of gasses. Once you turn it out and it's completely cool you should wrap it tightly with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.

But.. if she'd eating a cake that is a week old.. well yeah.. it's going to be a bit stale.. DUH right? Did she say it was fine when they first cut it?

I have had cakes that I have made been around for a good week.. in the fridge.. been more than okay when I tasted them, and I only bake scratch cakes. Out at room temp though.. eek!!!

Maybe if the cake had been wrapped and refrigerated it might be ok, but left out, no way is that cake fresh after five days. I wouldn't eat it or serve it to my guests.