Hi, I'm making a carrot cake w/ cream cheese icing
covered in fondant. I would like to make it the day before,
can I leave it out or should I just make it that day?

I bake m carrot cake about 3 days before, it will be fine only one day.

I'm not completely sure, but it might depend on the icing recipe. Other than that, I would probably see if you could at least ice it the day of or refrigerate it and put the fondant on the day of. Hopefully someone else will know more! Good luck!

You can make it the day before but I wouldn't leave cream cheese out for days.

Check out Earlenes cakes for a cream cheese icing recipe that can go unrefrigerated for a week. http://www.earlenescakes.com/icings.htm If you don't have Butavan I believe I've read here that the recipe will still taste good with vanilla? (does anyone know for sure?)