I am such a newbie! I am making a swimming pool cake for a 7-year-old's birthday. I am covering it with fondant, so I need help finding a filling recipe that would work well with chocolate cake and not need to be refrigerated. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!!!

How long will the cake be sitting out? I would stay away from anything that uses real cream in the filling. A chocolate swiss meringue buttercream would taste great and hold up very well though!

You could use a heat tolerant shortening based "buttercream". I like Indy Debbie's (water instead of milk). Just flavor it with extracts or lorrann flavors. If you are only going to have it out 12 hours or less you could use those bags of fillings you get at the cake supply store. Just keep your AC cranked up!

Triple Chocolate Fudge Butter Cream

1 batch of IndyDebi's BC
8 oz. of melted bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup of cocoa powder (dutch processed)
4 tbsp. of Hershey's chocolate syrup

Warning: If there are any children in the vicinity BEWARE. They go NUTS over this stuff. Its my best seller.

Oh, those ideas sound great! Thanks so much for the help! I guess I was wanting a filling that did not have to be refrigerated because I thought fondant cakes couldn't be refrigerated. Am I wrong? AND, if I use a milk/cream ingredient, how long can it be left out?

You just want to stay away from custard and whipped cream type fillings. You can use cream and milk products in your buttercream with no problem, they can be left out for days. I like to mix my buttercream with ganache, curds or thickened fruit purees.

You can very successfully refrigerate fondant covered cakes. They will have some condensation on them as they come to room temperature but it won't cause any problems unless you wipe something across them as they are "wet", that will leave a mark.

I really can't thank you all enough for your help! I truly appreciate it!

Mousse type fillings should not be left out for over 4 hours. Any longer and you could develop some icky bacteria! after 10 years of food safety classes and nursing courses my motto is you can never be too careful. Better safe than sorry!