Please Advise.... Leaving Cake On Counter???
Decorating By MemphisMom9801 Updated 28 Mar 2009 , 12:50pm by -K8memphis
I would think that boxed-cake mixes have so much preseratives(I suck at spelling, sorry) that they would be okay left out. I leave mine out on the counter/table. If they are already frosted they are in a cake box if not, they have plastic wrap over them. Is that okay?
Maybe scratch cakes would require different guidelines regarding refridgeration??
Regarding the raw meat: I like my steak still mooing. Not going to try the raw ground beef though..... E coli, not so much!
Do you have any idea on the bacteria count of store-bought hamburger? *shudder* I think I'd rather leave my cake out for a week and eat that before I'd scarf down some raw hamburger.
The bacteria is what makes it so gooooood! 
Just kidding. Seriously, that bacteria over the last 30+ years has probably contributed to my stomach's ability to attack anything foreign. Never have tummy aches, never...well, anyways. 
And I think I hijacked this thread by talking about raw meat and stuff, so my apologies to the OP. I certainly am very up on food safety and proper storage temps and all that. What I do at my home with 4 day old room temp cake and raw meat, is separate and unrelated to cake for paying customers. Very separate. 
Maybe scratch cakes would require different guidelines regarding refridgeration??
I only bake from scratch and I can tell you they're fine at room temp. I make cakes 1-3 days ahead of time and have never had any trouble. Matter of fact, one of my cakes was on display for a week and when I went to get it, it looked the same as when it had left my house. And there was even a slice taken out of it! No mold, no fuzzy growth, nothing! Granted, there's no way I would eat it, by the time I got it back it was 10 days old. But still, the lack of anything growing on it surprised me.
Matter of fact, one of my cakes was on display for a week and when I went to get it, it looked the same as when it had left my house. And there was even a slice taken out of it! No mold, no fuzzy growth, nothing! Granted, there's no way I would eat it, by the time I got it back it was 10 days old. But still, the lack of anything growing on it surprised me.
My 50th birthday cake .... the top tier was left over, after I fed all of my fraternity boys. We cut it at home when the cake itself was 8 days old. It was never refrigerated. It was "just" starting to taste like a grocery store cake (so what does THAT tell you?), but still ok, edible and non-poisonous. We all lived.
Eggs, milk and butter are all perishable...
However, as has been said, when baked these ingredients take on different properties.
It seems (previously unbeknownst to me) there's a science that studies how food changes as it's cooked called molecular gastronomy:
http://www.alacuisine.org/alacuisine/molecular_gastronomy/
But here's the science behind the shelf stability of American buttercreams and more....
Water activity & microbial growth:
(Prolong Bakery Product Life.)
http://tinyurl.com/6fbkcz
In 1953, W.J. Scott first established that it was water activity, not water content that correlated with bacterial growth:
http://tinyurl.com/bmsato
Formulating for increased shelf life:
(Decreasing water activity results in hostile environment for bacteria.)
http://tinyurl.com/csu2b9
HTH
Here's some trivia about preservatives.
BHT is a preservative that is added to the packaging so lots of stuff will have preservatives but it's not listed because it's not an ingredient in the contents.
(But this is from my studies when my kid was little because I had him on an elimination diet so all preservatives were eliminated--but they probably still do it)
Duncan Hines White cake mix says specifically that it does not have preservatives.
Just some trivia.
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