I am about to assemble a cake that will be picked up tomorrow at 10:30 and I just realized that I may have a problem. She wanted fresh whipped cream with fresh bananas as the filling. I didn't think anything of it and until now that I need to store this overnight. It'll be covered in buttercream and refrigerated.

Will the whipped cream and the banana be OK overnight? I'm afraid the whipped cream will get watery and that the bananas will turn brown.

I can't for the life of me find my whipped cream stabilizer so I'll stablize with gelatin.

Any advice would be great. Thank you!

sorry mburkett, but I would never make a whipped cream with banana filling cake the night before. I'd start early in the morning and drink lots of coffee.

You can use lemon juice to keep the bananas from turning brown:
http://www.tasteofhome.com/Cooking-Tips/Bananas/Prevent-Bananas-from-Browning

I'm really not sure how the whipped cream will do inside the cake overnight. I hope someone will give you some good advice!

I can't say I have ever tried it, but it sounds like it could be a disaster in the making. Whipped cream deflating, bananas turning brown, even more slippery if you use lemon juice on them which still doesn't keep them nice and perfect. Plus the whole things seems really prone to sliding around once they layers are stacked. Yeesh. Good luck!

I don't know but if it's filling wouldn't the two layers of cake protect it from getting brown, don't they get brown because they are exposed to air. I'm just asking so don't yell at me. So if this were the case I would fill it overnight and frost in the morning.

C'mon, SoFlo, who would yell at you????? If I recall from my pudding/jello dessert upbringing, bananas would get brown in a salad, but if I recall less brown than if they were just laying out. But that is making me think a long ways back. So maybe the whipped cream and cakes will delay it. Hopefully the poster will report back because I am curious how this one turns out. Unfortunately she won't know unless the client reports back because it will be hidden inside.

(I think the problem is when you cut them

Answer: Apples and other produce (e.g., pears, bananas, peaches, potatoes) contain an enzyme (called polyphenol oxidase or tyrosinase) that reacts with oxygen and iron-containing phenols that are also found in the apple. The oxidation reaction basically forms a sort of rust on the surface of the fruit. You see the browning when the fruit is cut or bruised because these actions damage the cells in the fruit, allowing oxygen in the air to react with the enzyme and other chemicals.

The reaction can be slowed or prevented by inactivating the enzyme with heat (cooking), reducing the pH on the surface of the fruit (by adding lemon juice or another acid), reducing the amount of available oxygen (by putting cut fruit under water or vacuum packing it), or by adding certain preservative chemicals (like sulfur dioxide). On the other hand, using cutlery that has some corrosion (as is seen with lower quality steel knives) can increase the rate and amount of the browning by making more iron salts available for the reaction.

The bananas might brown some but not too much. I would stabilize the whip cream. I've used Whip-It (I think that's what its called) in the past to do this for a strawberry cake and it held up.

-d

I didn't write that very well. When I said laying out, I meant slices of banana laying out. So bananas covered with pudding and other ingredients would brown less than slices of bananas just on a plate, if I recall correctly.

Thank you for all your advice. Unfortunately, after posting this notice, I had to run off to the my kitchen to work (no computers). I thought your responses would go to my phone's email but they did not. (Apparently you only get emails after you post a response but not to the original poster of a question....note to self). So, I didn't get the responses until after I stacked the cake. Boy did my stomach sink and I panicked a bit.

However, I went for it. I stabilized the whipped cream with gelatin. I took the cut-off domes and made myself a sample with the cream and bananas and this morning it still looked really good out of the frige. The bananas only browned very slightly and so far the cream remains stabilized. We'll see what happens when the cake comes to room temp. If it doesn't work out, I'm sure I'll hear about it. So far so good.

From now on, I think I'll stick to buttercream and fruit fillings. Now, on to the next cake.

I'm new at the professionally so I'm still working out my kinks. Thank you all again!

Michele

Glad it worked out for you, thanks for letting us know.