Help! I need to know if this cake is fit to eat.

[RoundTheBend]

I made two maderia sponge cakes on Monday and covered them in cling film. On Wednesday I made butter icing, filled the cakes and then covered them with icing, decorated them etc. Someone has now told me that the cake will not be fit to eat today as I should have left it to today to do the butter icing etc. I thought that if I covered the cakes with icing, it would seal in the freshness. Is this not the case? It is too late to make another one now. Please tell me it will be okay, I don't want to make people sick.

AFAIK if it's just butter icing it should be OK as you can leave butter out of the fridge no problems.

RTH, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't fancy it. Presumably there were eggs in your recipe?

They'll be fine in terms of not making people sick, presumably the ingredients in the sponge are jsut flour, butter, eggs etc?

I'd be more worried about it being stale given that you made it 5 days ago. But am not expert on sponge cakes and fairy cakes never last that long in our house! Butter icing won't be off though I wouldn;t have thought, as furball says, you'd leave butter out of the fridge for that long with no problem.

But the eggs will have been cooked so that's ok, salmonella etc are from uncooked/undercooked stuff. Cooking kills it.

WWW is just right. Just take them along to wherever they're going to and don't watch people eating them

I like the idea of not watching people eat them! Yes, all the eggs are cooked, so fingers crossed then. I normally make fruit cakes but was asked especially to make a sponge cake. I am a novice to sponge cakes hence the worry. Thanks for all your reassurance.

Are you taking them to the same church fete as the one I am going to later? If so tip me the wink over the tea table and I will give the Victoria Sponge a wide berth

You are alright F&Z. It is a two tier celebration cake for a party! That's probably worse actually, everyone will know it's my cake . I will let you all know if it was edible or not. It looks pretty! Maybe I can say it's just for looking at and not for eating.

Madeira cake keeps well, that's why it's used for celebration cakes. It's quite a 'dry' tasting cake, compared to VSC, so ignore any comments about it being stale, cos it won't be

Oh good, sorry for my crap advice then, I do apologise, I thought it was like a sponge cake. Apologies for any unnecessary trauma caused

Just thought I would let you know that the cake was definitely edible! It all went!!