Shelf life for homemade cake?

[BR44]

If I make ds a birthday cake on Wednesday do you think it will still be edible and vaguely fresh by Saturday? No cream involved, just basic sponge with a jam layer, covered in ready roll icing and bucket loads of decorations.

I'd rather do it later in the week but am simply not going to find the time, so it's either make on wednesday and stick it in the fridge or get a shop bought one.....

Just freeze your basic sponge, take out to defrost on fri night then fill & decorate on saturday morning. It'll be grand :)

Yes definitely freeze, if you make it on Wednesday it will be stale by Saturday (sorry!)

Thursday night, fully regal iced top and sides sealed on the board you'd probably get away with.

Wednesday is pushing it.

It would be better to bake it Thursday, but I would say it will be fine if you do it on Weds and cover it well. I make cakes as a hobby and I (and all the 'proper' cake makers I know) bake on the Thurs and decorate Friday for a Saturday cake, as it needs to 'settle' ideally before covering. However, I have eaten cakes up to a week after they have been baked and they have been fine if stored well.

Some recipes last longer than others though and I agree a higher fat content will help storage.

I made a victoria sponge cake for my sister's wedding cake, it was a complex cake so needed starting well in advance - I baked it on the wednesday then decorated it over the next two days (it was a 2' long narrowboat). They continued eating it until it was all gone and apparently it still tasted good two weeks after the wedding so well over two weeks from being baked. I would recommend decorating it ASAP after baking and it should be fine baked three days beforehand.

just realised this was a bit late....

I ended uP making quite a dense pound cake and it was absolutely fine by Saturday! Pretty tasty too although one of the two year old guests did regurgitate the blue icing in spectacular exorcist-style...

Thanks all!