I think this might be my first post, I am a lurker who has been cake decorating now for a good 3 years. Just as a hobby for friends and family. I am also from the UK.

I have a dilemma, I agreed to do a cake for a friend for her bf's bday. He is a DJ so I am going to do a simple ish one of a turntable. Not stressed about the design at all...just about the timings due to life getting in the way (how could it not understand cake is more important!).

Am going to do a vanilla sponge with syrup to keep it fresh. The cake needs to be ready for Friday evening. Going to have vanilla buttercream with a jam centre as well. Then covered in fondant with fondant decorations.

Normally, I would bake the cake Tues night, cover in the bc and white fondant Weds night, decorate Thurs night then voila. However, while I can bake it Tues night, Weds night I am travelling somewhere as my mum has a hospital appt on the Thurs (I have to go straight from work as it's 2.5 hours on public transport), and I won;t be back until probably about 10pm on the Thurs night.

This is where I need help, I don;t want a mouldy or dry cake (it has syrup but worried about it going off!) but I don;t want to be up all night doing the cake decorating when I get back on the Thurs. I have debated taking the Friday off to decorate the cake but I have another full work day on that day. Can't take any time off on the Weds as I now have meetings all day.

Any advice is appreciated, currently I am getting a tad stressed. I might start tatooing my appts on my arms from now on so I don't miss things!

Thank you!

AHi, you could freeze the cake, wrap it up with cling film and then fill it and crumb coat it while it's frozen on the Thursday leave it in fridge to defrost and decorate it on the Friday. X

Have you got an idea about how long each part of decorating will take? I'm mad for lists and always try to section out what needs to be done and when and then make whatever I can ahead (not that much ever goes to plan), like figures or covering board, maybe in your case, any dials or leavers or stuff. Can you plan how long you can set aside each night you are actually home? Should give you an idea how soon you could push up the baking of the cake.

As a test, you could make some mini test cakes (totally covered in icing) and leave them in the kitchen for 4/5 days before you cut into them and see how they are, do you have time to try that? It would give you the best idea how long the cake actually lasts without it being cut/exposed to the air etc. The only other thing I can think would be to freeze the cake before you decorate, that should buy you some time while its 'defrosting' but I haven't ever decorated a frozen/overly cold cake so I'm not sure how difficult it would be with condensation etc.

Either way, good luck! Hope it all turns out perfectly but I'm sure it will =]

Thank you lovely peeps for replying. In the end the hospital appointment got moved so I had this week to do the cake.

Hopefully it tastes ok, here is a pic of the finished cake. Was a vanilla sponge with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam covered in fondant:

Gotta love the NHS... Cake looks great! Glad it all went well =D