How long will cake/icing last?

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

I want to make a cake for DDs birthday. The problem is I will need to make the cake on Friday, travel on Saturday and serve on Sunday, and I am worried will be stale.

I was thinking I might try a rainbow cake with buttecream icing and jam (jam and icing inside as am worried about it being too dry)

If I made all this on the Friday would it keep/travel ok? I know jam might make it slidey so was going to stick skewers through middle under icing.

I am a bit of a novice baker so guidance would be very welcome. I am also open to making a completely different cake if it would keep/travel better. Dd is going to be 3,and will need to feed 9 hungry adults + DD.

(I am also vegan, but can veganise most recipes)

Are you wanting to make a vegan cake or a standard Victoria sponge type of cake?

If it is a Victoria sponge it will be fine to make on Friday and serve on Sunday as the high fat content will help the keeping qualities.

I was going to make a vegan sponge substituting marge/butter egg replacer/eggs non dairy milk/milk.

Does the same apply to the icing?

www.theimaginationtree.com/2012/09/how-to-make-rainbow-cake.html?m=1

This recipe...

You can make "buttercream" with margarine, but IMO it tastes revolting. I realise that you won't want to eat butter though. Perhaps you could disguise the margarine taste by flavouring the icing with lemon/orange zest or lemon/orange essence.

That was my thought - I'm going to do a test cake and feed it to some omnis to see what they think. TbH I suspect the whole cake will be a bit "interesting"

My Mil made marge buttecream and I thought it tasted ok - could I maybe add vanilla to the buttecream.

Or I could put fondant on the outside - would that be okay with Victoria sponges?

Another question (sorry) can you taste the colour pastes?

You will still need some buttercream to stick the fondant to the cake. It is a matter of personal taste, but I don't like fondant icing. I think it is made with egg white so you will need to check the ingredients.

I'm not that fond either TbH, but thought it might be an easy option and help ton"seal" the cake and keep it fresh.

Can I ice it on the Friday as well? Don't really want to faff with last minute icing...

I really appreciate all this help bunbaker

Yes. In fact the icing will seal the cake and keep it fresher.

I'm happy to help. I have been doing a lot of baking this week as we are doing a bake sale this weekend. All the cakes I have made are currently in the freezer.

marge butter icing only tastes ok if you use marge that tastes very buttery (IYSWIM)

You can use any icing really.

Not sure about the colour. We made cakes using loads of food colouring and you can taste it after a while. But if you are following recipe it should be fine.

To make the flavours better you could think about a chocolate icing. Sustitute about 1/4 of the icing sugar fir cocoa powder??

If you are doing the rainbow cake you must use gel food colouring and not liquid food colouring. You would have to use a lot of liquid to get the deep colour and that will make the mixture too wet. Gel colouring is more intense so you use less and it won't change the consistency of the cake mix.

I was going to use pastes, is that the same as gels?

I'm not sure a chocolate icing would look as dramatic - all the pics of rainbow cakes seem to have white icing...

If I ice with buttercream do I need to keep on fridge, or is room temp ok?

I think paste is the same, just don't use liquid. Room temp is fine, as long as it isn't tropical. Cakes don't keep very well in the fridge because they dry out. That is why bread goes stale quickly if you keep it in the fridge.

Did you read the bit about a "crumb coating"? If you do a thin layer of buttercream and let it set then do another layer you won't get cake crumbs in the icing. It really does work.

what about using trex for the icing. isnt that vegan?

Trex is utterly vile. Do. not. use. It is a substitute for lard.

Won't be using trex. Will be using Pure margarine, to my odd vegan palate it tastes fine.

I was just about to say use PURE and add some vanilla to it, under no circumstances use Vitalite, this is the way to vile icing!
I have made many vegan cakes in my time and they still taste good a few days later. The jam and 'butter'cream will keep the cake nice and moist.
(oh and some of the moister vegan cakes use oil instead of marg)

There are lots of nice recipes which use oil, but I don't know any that are also egg-less.

And iced cake (ideally iced as soon as it is good and cold) will easily keep for 3-4 days, and butter cream will be fine as long as you keep it out of direct sunlight.

Wow! Thanks all for the advice... I will let you know how it all turns out

stealth, the recipes i use with oil in them tend to have bicarb and cider vinegar instead of eggs.

I think a vegan cake will dry out pretty quickly. I'd also just buy ready made vegan icing

I don't think it matters if you use powder if you are only adding a little - say a teaspoon or so, as long as it doesn't change the consistency of the mixture.

I have no experience of vegan baking so I can't say whether a vegan cake would dry out. Although it is the fat content that will keep it moist. A classic whisked sponge doesn't keep because it doesn't contain any fat (apart from the fat in the egg yolk). I frequent a food forum where one of the contributors is a vegan and she has a lot of success with cakes.

Honestly, i have never had a problem with a vegan cake drying out! Sometimes if i have misjudged the liquid, it might come out of the oven dry, but if it comes out moist, it will stay that way.