We have an old family recipe for a strawberry cake (doctored cake mix) that has a old fashioned strawberry buttercream.

The buttercream recipe consists only of butter, fresh strawberries and an entire bag of powdered sugar.

Because of the butter and the strawberries it isn't super stiff and if left out it can weep because of the moisture in the strawberries.

First this was my great grandmothers recipe and she would leave it out on the counter for a couple of days. This is my concern. I want to use this buttercream as filling for a fondant cake I'm doing.

Since it has fresh strawberries in it, should it be refridgerated?

Is it silly to think I could make a batch and leave it on the counter and see how long it took to go bad? How else can you determine how long something can sit at room temp?

It's ok if you tell me I'm crazy. I'm always at a loss when tryingn to figure out what needs to be refridgerated and what doesn't.

I don't think this buttercream would be more perishible than any other buttercream just because it has strawberry. Then again let's see what the experts say.

I would think it would be okay maybe for a day or two...but I refrigerate all my cakes anyway and prefer to see everything firm up in the fridge for transport.

The sugar would probably keep the strawberries from going bad too fast but yeah eventually in a few days its going to start to sour.

well if you think about it, when you leave fresh strawberries out on the counter, they go moldy. FAST. I think Iwouldnt want to take any chances, and pop it in the fridge... JMHO

Well sugar acts as a preservative for milk/dairy so I'd imagine it would preserve fruit too...(jelly doesn't go moldy fast on the counter...but eventually it does need to be refrigerated...after maybe a day, no more than two.)

I personally make a similar buttercream, and always refrigerate. If you cut up some strawberries, put them in a bowl with sugar, and left them out on the counter....would you really want to eat them after a day or two? kinda gross if you ask me.

Can you just use the juice from the berries and not the berries themselves?

Big difference between a jam in which fruit has been boiled essentially candied in the hot sugar and fresh sliced fruit that happens to be covered in Butter cream... in the fridge or you'll wind up with a soggy weepy mess.
Be honest did your Grandmas wonderful cake really ever last that long?

I made a similar recipe for a strawberry filling once upon a time and it didn't take long for it to turn to soup and blew out the sides of the cake! So I just use a strawberry jam and mix it in with my buttercream and that seems to hold up better.

I know using family recipes is a pride thing and I love doing it too. But, maybe you could settle for "inspired by grandma" and adapt the buttercream. Maybe you could substitute strawberry jam like bobwonderbuns said. If it doesn't have enough "kick" could you put a bit of candy oil? Not sure how candy oil works in BC, or IF it works in BC, but just a thought. Or...shoot, plain strawberry extract! (I always make things hard!)

Good Luck!

Thanks everyone. That really did answer my question...I think I'll find an alternative
Thanks again.

I recently had this very dilema and what I ended up doing is take frozen strawberries, thaw them and then run them through the food processor and using that as my liquid instead of milk or water. I did end up using more than my usual 6tbs of liquid, but it was really, really good strawberry bc. I needed my cake for Saturday and I filled and iced on Thursday, put in the fridge and on Friday covered w/fondant and decorated and it was left out from then on and it was just fine. Good Luck!