On Monday I baked a chocolate cake, filled with chocolate ganache and covered in a thin buttercream icing layer. The costumer changed her mind and postponed the deliver for Thursday. I still have to cover the cake in fondant. How can I keep the cake fresh and moist until thursday? Should I keep in the fridge? Cover? Double layer the buttercream?

The fridge will dry it out! Take it out, let it come to room temp, apply another thin layer of bc and get the fondant on it. That's what will keep the cake fresh - it acts as an airtight seal (if applied properly).

Thanks a lot Mike. My only concern is the chocolate ganache, which I made incorporating raw egg yolks... It will be ok outside the fridge?

Your cake will be fresh for several days if you have the final coating of buttercream or fondant on it. I, personally, wouldn't go for more than 5 days. So, yes, it will still be fresh on Thursday. Do not refridgerate it. The fridge can dry the cake out and your cake can absorb any odors. Just put it in it's cake box and set it somewhere where it won't be bumped or knocked around.

Cat

Aren't the egg yolks basically cooked when adding the hot cream? It's then safe to leave out at room temp.

Why not freeze it before covering with fondant? Cover tightly with cling wrap and stick in the freezer. I freeze ALL my cakes and they are not dry. Afterward, let your cake come to room temp and cover with fondant then. Refrigerating your cake does not make it dry either. Again...I do it all the time. The bakery I worked for did it all the time. No problems.

I'm curious to why everybody says putting a cake in the refrigerator dries it out. I just took a cupcake and put it in the refrigerator overnight and then let it come to room temp. I compared to a cupcake that I left out of the refrigerator and it is not any dryer.

Granted cake does not taste as good straight out of the fridge as it does at room temp, but I'm not noticing any drying.

To the OP. If you have the book Planet Cake, they cover their cakes with ganache all the time. According to the book, the ganache keeps the moisture in the cake.

As far as I can tell it's less about a frosted cake in the fridge as an unfrosted one going dry. My biggest concern about a frosted cake in the fridge is that it will be prone to absorbing odors in the fridge from onion to sauce to even mustard. If you have a fridge dedicated to cake only then you don't have to worry about that.

Cat

Cat, thank you. This clears up my confusion.