Hi, A client has asked me to use strawberry preserves and sliced fresh banana as a filling. Will the banana survive the two days it will take be between the torting and filling of the cake to delivery time? I'm afraid the client will cut into the cake and reveal a brown yucky banana. I'll be covering the cake in chocolate ganache and fondant. Should I refrigerate the cake in between decorating sessions? Any advise would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

No, your banana will turn into a brown mushy mess after just a few hours.

Good Morning, rooneygirl I just got done reading several articles about how to keep sliced bananas from browning. Use a stainless steel knife when cutting, your banans then you can either brush or spray both sides of your sliced bananas with lemon juice, tinned pineapple juice, orange juice, tinned or fresh grapefruit juice and then use or use instead of the juices Fresh Fruit. Which is a processed ascorbic. It is used in Canning fruit and you should be able to find it in your grocery store or hardware store. I hope this helps. Good luck I just googled how to keep fresh sliced banans from browning and found a lot.

You can also soak them in lemon lime soda it helps preserve the slices. What about strawberry preserves with a layer of banana mousse.?

Rooneygirl, I made a cake a while back and filled it with fresh sliced bananas and buttercream. I brushed them well with lemon juice on both sides and tried them in a test cake first. After a couple of days, they weren't too bad, actually. There was some browning, of course, but I warned the customer and she was fine with that. I thought the bigger problem with the bananas was that they are soooo slippery. Be careful with your layers sliding!

Bananas plus strawberry (or any other) preserves will turn into a soupy mess because the banana juice is drawn out by the sugar in the preserves.

Dipping the banana slices into some sort of acid to keep them from browning will not make any difference to this process. Buttercream icing has of course much more fat and much less liquid to cause a problem...ditto for ganache. Both buttercream and ganache harden up when you chill them unlike fruit preserves.

It sounds like you have to learn to say "no can't be done": to some orders.

If you decide against fresh bananas you could try the recipe for bananas foster filling that someone posted in this thread (per the poster the bananas should be 3/4 cup). I haven't tried it so I'm not sure how it would turn out or if you need to refrigerate it.