Hi there, I couldn't find a definitive answer after searching Cake Central and Google, can someone here help me? I'm a new baker and have made 24 cupcakes to go along with my daughters birthday cake for her first birthday party tomorrow. Right now they are in airtight containers in my fridge, as I made them at about midnight last night! They are still nice and moist, but I want to frost them this morning so they will lock in the moisture for tomorrow. I'm planning to place round fondant circles that have been drying for over a day on top with little pink fondant bows (that I will be making today) to make "minnie mouse" ears after the buttercream hardens a bit. My problem is that after frosting the cupcakes, even without the ears, the container I have the cupcakes in won't be deep enough, and frosting will stick to the top. If I leave these uncovered in my fridge overnight, will they dry out terribly? Should I wait until late in the day so they aren't uncovered as long to frost them? I know many people suggest not refridgerating them, but we are having a heat wave and I'm concerned the buttercream will melt if I leave them out on the counter - not to mention I have kitties and don't want to take a chance.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer! I should add a good friend of mine who will be attending the party is an avid baker and known really well in this area for her cupcakes...I don't want to subject her (or my ego) to dry cupcakes!

I dont put my cupcakes in the fridge because they do dry out as you have mentioned. The only time I put my cupcakes in the fridge is if I frosted them with cream cheese frosting and they were not ate right away. When I make cupcakes the night prior I keep them in my cupcake carrier overnight and I make the buttercream the morning of. I then place them back into my cupcake carrier until I put them in my cardboard boxes. When adding fondant toppers I place the toppers on just as I am putting them into the cardboard boxes. We are in the 90s here as well and I always need to bump up my a/c when Im making cupcakes just to make sure they buttercream doesnt melt. I personally would wait to frost and decorate them until as late as you possibly can. Just my opinion

I made cupcakes tonight and frosted them before i left for work. i kept them in the fridge until i walked out the door and they're in the fridge at work now..in my experience, they've never dried out if i leave them uncovered. but if i don't plan on eating them within 24 hours, i freeze them.

At my shop we tell everybody to not refrigerate their cupcakes as they will dry them out. We recommend freezing or leaving them on the counter in the box. With the exception of fillings or frosting that need to be kept refrigerated or go bad, there is no reason to refrigerate cupcakes. We are getting stickers for our boxes that say "do not refrigerate".

i usually just do it to cool them faster so i can frost them faster. /shrug

Thank you so much for all of your responses! I should have asked further in advance - I wasn't able to check back here in time and went ahead and refridgerated them. Pooh! They didn't dry out too much, but I covered them just to be cautious. The only problem I had was that I used fondant decorations and they turned gooey. Even before I took them out of the fridge they started to sweat and soften (maybe from all the opening and closing I did during the day while baking?) Do you usually use gumpaste in your fondant to keep it firmer longer? Or do you just harden your pieces by leaving it out for a few days and putting it on last minute? The cake I left out of the fridge as it was fondant covered and decorated and I didn't have the same sweaty/gooing issues as I did the cupcakes. Do you think some of the gooing could be from the use of fondant on top of buttercream or is it just because I made the mistake of refridgerating?

In any case I'm grateful for your advice, though I flubbed up this time it wasn't too bad, and you have helped me for the next party I have coming up in about two weeks! Thank you very much!