I'm going to start selling cupcakes to a local coffee house-I'm wondering what the protocol is for fillings. Usually I use lemon curds and mock cheese cake fillings and others with whipping cream, cream cheese, milk, etc. I always see cupcakes in display cases so my question is do I need to tell them to refrigerate the cupcakes? My first thought was that I'd probably need to refrigerate them, but I'm always seeing cupcake shops with theirs out on display-I don't think I've ever seen someone take a cupcake out of a cooler hehe Can anyone shed some light?
TIA

I'm a fantatic about NOT refrigerating cakes. I think it's the kiss of death. I recently did a cupcake crawl in NYC. Only ONE of the cupcake shops I visited refrigerated their cakes - and the cupcakes from that shop were the WORST by far. Not only was the texture unappealing, but the frosting had picked up "refrigerator flavor." Know that I'm talking about? UGH!

yeah I hear you on that refrigerator taste! I would hate to refrigerate, but I'm so scared of any potential health issues because I'd be using curds and lots of dairy :/ How long can curds be left on the shelf? With cakes I have my process down, but I feel frazzled about cupcakes because I wont be there to monitor. Yikes!

I would talk to the places you are working with. Would they even have room to refridgerate the cupcakes? Is that something they want to deal with?

If not then you may need to look into different fillings ideas.

Personally if I was providing something for someone else, in a situation like this, I would use only shelf stable items, because you never know how the product is going to be handled once they have it.