Thinking about LO's birthday cake in April. I WOHM and LO likes to not nap! 
Trying to work out my timeline and figure out what I can do in advance. I'd love to hear from any bees with experience baking and freezing cake layers, anyone with a foolproof frosting recipe, etc.
Could I decorate the day before and keep it in the fridge? Our party will likely be early afternoon.
Thanks!
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I made a three-layer white cake, which I baked two days before and froze, wrapping it in plastic wrap, the aluminum foil and the freezer bags. I let it defrost in the refrigerator and it came out fine. I also made a simple frosting using butter, powdered sugar, some milk and vanilla but I made it and frosted the cake the day of the party.
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@fancyfunction: did you totally defrost the cake layers before frosting. I read on some sites that frosting frozen cake is actually much easier!
Do you have any fancy tools like an offset spatula or bench scraper (I've been watching too many cake videos on you tube ...) -
I am planning on baking R's cake Thursday night. Wrapping in plastic wrap, foil, and putting in a ziploc bag and keeping in the fridge till Sat. Then Sat morning I will make the icing and ice it. This is just her smash cake. We are getting a sheet cake from Costco for everyone else.
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@Smurfette: what kind of cake are you making? (flavor)
I will have to do a smash cake and then a cake for the growups. Maybe sheet cake is the way to go for that. Do you have small cake pans for the smash cake? -
@cmomma17: I am making this one. I made a trial one last weekend and it was really good. Almost a pound cake but still light and fluffy. I bought 6' pans for her cake. The sheet cake is $19 at Costco. I can't make it cheaper then that for 40+
http://addapinch.com/cooking/2013/08/09/the-best-white-cake-recipe/#axzz2riCGykN9
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I made my own wedding cakes (had three different sized cakes on different height cake stands instead of traditional stacked tiers)
We baked and cooled the cakes two days before the wedding, wrapped them in plastic wrap and froze them.
Then we made basic buttercream (like @fancyfunction suggested) the day before the wedding and frosted them. I put them in cake boxes and wrapped the cake boxes in plastic wrap and refrigerated until the reception.
They were delicious
We had 300 guests though, so most people ate costco sheet cakes that were sliced before being served. Most people didn't know the difference between my cake and the costco cake and thought I made all of them.
Our "top tier"/smallest cake was about 4 inches. It barely used any batter! We found small pans at Michaels. I've also seen them at HomeGoods, but it's sort of hit and miss what you can find there.
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I found the frosting and cake recipes by searching Annie's Eats blog (ended up making vanilla bean flavor for frosting, main cake, and smash cake). I also bought a revolving cake stand and it made decorating so much easier...pricey but worth it since I plan on making LO's bday cakes each year.
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Oh, and I HIGHLY recommend an offest spatula. SO much easier than a knife or regular spatula.
And clean it off often if you're trying to get the icing smooth.
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This was our smallest one. I guess it's higher than I remember!
Since I had so much else to do I nixed the idea of cake from scratch and used box mixes. Some were lemon and some were strawberry. I added a layer of lemon curd or strawberry jam between the layers and it was fantastic.
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I baked the cupcakes and smash cake about 3 weeks in advance and wrapped in plastic wrap, then foil the. Put in freezer bags and kept them in the freezer. I defrosted them the day before. Don't remember how. I think I left them on the counter. I frosted them the day before too and left them in the fridge over night. They turned out great! I did a simple buttercream frosting of powdered sugar, butter, heavy cream and vanilla. I find adding more butter to it makes it taste less sweet and really yummy. I got a lot of compliments on the frosting.
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In my experience it is best to store cakes either on the counter or in the freezer, in the fridge they dry out. If you're baking a couple days before I would just keep them out. I generally frost the day of the party in the morning, but preparing the frosting can be done the day before and stored in the fridge.
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I think the fridge is fine for overnight, but not much longer.
If you're planning to make it way in advance I recommend wrapping in plastic wrap, putting it in a cake box, wrapping the box in foil, and then again in plastic wrap. We did that for our leftover cake and a year later I fed it to my coworkers (DH and I could only eat so much) and my coworkers swore I made it fresh
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You can totally decorate and put in the fridge.
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I made a rainbow layer cake for my son's first birthday and it took me a lot longer than I thought it would, for several reasons, so I would recommend if you are going that route, to save yourself time and do boxed cake mix.
If you're doing something more simple, I'd probably bake the cake from scratch and then use a cream cheese frosting, as it holds up nicely in the fridge. I don't really care for buttercream or fondant, but that's just me.
As for how far in advance, what I'd suggest is that if you're going to make the cake more than a week in advance, freeze the layers. If you're making it a few days before, I'd just store them loosely covered between some tea towels.
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@Smurfette: yum, that cake looks delicious! I have a soft spot for funfetti, so that's my plan for now
Our party will be very small, so I will DIY two cakes most likely. Maybe chocolate for the grownups.@marym: thanks for all the great tips and advice! your cakes turned out beautiful! would buttercream be something I could make the night before and put in the fridge overnight? I am thinking I would make the cake a week ahead and freeze. Frosting the night before, and decorate the day of? Or maybe decorate the night before, as while LO is sleeping will be most biggest chunk of available time.
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@cmomma17: I made a six-layer (rainbow) cake (and smaller 5-layer smash cake) for my LO's first birthday. I also WOH full-time. I made the layers a week in advance, wrapped each layer in saran wrap, and covered all the layers in foil, and froze them until the morning of the party. I removed the layers mid-morning, frosted them, and they were ready to serve by 3 p.m.
I also made 2 full practice cakes (so that I could get the colors right and the layers super even). I am glad that I did it - it really did turn out beautifully, and I am so proud of myself for doing it!
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You could make butter cream ahead, but you'd have to bring it back to room temperature and whip it again to make it easy to spread, so I'd only do that if you don't mind washing your mixer a second time
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You can make swiss meringue buttercream anytime, freeze it, then just thaw it the night before and frost the day before!
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@cmomma17: I recently made this from-scratch funfetti cake for a baby shower - http://sweetapolita.com/2012/02/funfetti-layer-cake-with-whipped-vanilla-frosting/
Both the cake and frosting are pretty easy. I made the cake layers ahead and froze them. I've found you can freeze cake layers wrapped very well in plastic wrap and aluminum foil for a month and they turn out just fine (you might be able to do longer, but I haven't baked further in advance than that).
I did the frosting in the morning - I just frost the frozen cakes and make sure to set them out at room temperature a few hours before they will be eaten. You can probably frost them the night before as well if you have a good cake saver to keep the air out.
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@cmomma17: I left it slightly cool from the fridge while frosting. No fancy tools - I tried an offset spatula but felt the regular one worked better for me
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