How long can batter sit before it is baked? If batter can sit for a significant period of time, should it stay at room temperature or can it be refrigerated? In other words, if I make a large quantity of batter, but I only have a couple of pans, is it okay that some of the original batter might not get baked for a couple of hours (while I keep re-using my pans)? By the way, can I just say how incredibly helpful and supportive this forum is !!

I do this when ever I have leftover batter and it's fine. Cover the leftover batter and refrigerate until ready to use; then I just give it a couple of stirs with a big spoon, pour in the pan and bake. Good luck!

I did this just the other day, and had no troubles... Both cakes came out looking great!

I re-use my pans as well and have had no problems with the cakes from letting the batter sit out.

If it is 1/2 hour or so, I leave it out (covered) if it will be longer, then I refrigerate it. It has always been fine

Some scratch recipes wouldn't sit out well after mixing -the baking powder would lose it's effectiveness. It depends on the recipe, or mix, but I agree with the above info

Thanks, everyone, for your input. I wasn't sure if the batter starts to "break down" or gluten starts to do something bad (whatever gluten is!). So "batter sitting" appears to be one less thing to worry about.

I make all my cakes from scratch and re-use my pans as well. I have no problems in making batter in large batches and then baking from it. I refrigerate my batters and always stir really well before pouring it into the pans. I just did a 7 tier wedding cake with only a 5 qt KA and 1 of each size pan - 16, 14, 12, and 2 of the 10, 8, and 6. The cake had 2 flavors of cake and 2 flavors of filling/icing and all covered with SI fondant. In order to make enough batter for the pans I had to make many, many batches of batter and stored it in the refrigerator and used a large ice cream scoop to scoop it out into the pans (after a good stirring). Not a bit of trouble with the batter.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info as well. I've always wondered.

Btw, do you let the batter come to room temperature before putting it in the pans or do you just bake it cold?

I have made it both ways, room temp and cold and have had no trouble either way.

When I had a regular oven, I'd fill all the cake pans and line them up on the counter to wait their turn in the oven. So assuming it takes 30-60 minutes per baking batch, some of those pans would sit there for an hour or two and they'd be fine.

I've also stored leftover batter in the 'frig, poured it into a pan and straight into the oven and it worked fine.

I also put batter in a 6" square pan, froze it, then took it from freezer to counter for 15 minutes, got bored with waiting for it to thaw and just threw it in the oven ... it baked perfect.

I'm a mix baker, so results may differ if using a scratch recipe.