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Just hosted a party? You may have just found yourself the proud owner of a massive amount of leftover cake now that the lights and music have died down and it’s time to clean up. But how much time will you have before your delicious spoils go to waste?
Most types of cake last around two to three days in the refrigerator and up to around 3 months in the freezer, though when stored properly, some cakes will last virtually forever in the freezer. Other types have a much shorter fridge and freezer life and are best eaten sooner rather than later.
Would you like to know which types of cake last for the longest amount of time? Read on to find out how long your particular pastry will last in your fridge or freezer.
Storage Considerations
Virtually every cake on this list is going to last for a few days depending on how you store it. Beyond that, you want it to taste as fresh as possible, right? The best way to store cake requires multiple steps.
- Wrap plastic wrap around the cake and make sure it is properly sealed with as little air as possible.
- Wrap tin foil around the plastic-wrapped cake.
- Put your wrapped cake in a Tupperware-style container and close it completely.
Although Tupperware containers are not the best things to use on their own to store cake as they are not air-tight, they can be an excellent third layer to use to protect your cake from the devious element of oxygen that would otherwise take away from its rich moistness and creamy frosting.
Freezing your cake will allow it to stay fresh for much, much longer than it will in your refrigerator. Whole cakes, or cake that has not already been cut into slices, last longer than individual cake slices when stored. The level of moistness a cake possesses when it is stored is especially important to take note of if you want it to taste as good as possible when it comes time to break it out again.
Cake that is especially moist will taste better after a couple of days in the fridge because it won’t be completely dry in that time, and that which is already dry is only going to be even drier and taste even worse after some time inside.
Different Types of Cake and How Long They Last For
Wedding Cake
Wedding cake probably ranks highly among some of the richest and most delicious types of cake someone can get their hands on. Not only that, but it’s inherently connected to a beautiful memory if you are the couple whose wedding the cake was for. So, how do you keep the cake from your special day as tasty as possible for as long as possible?
According to Rexburg Bakery, which bakes its cakes the morning of or morning before an event at the earliest to guarantee the best taste, there are actually several different variables that go into how long a wedding cake lasts in the fridge. But, as a general rule, they said they suggest eating it within the day for ultimate freshness. If stored, however, their recommendation was to eat cake stored in the fridge within two days, and cake stored in the freezer within 30 days.
However, some people will save their cake as long as a year after their wedding, to eat on their anniversary, and have reported it to still taste good. The key takeaway here is that cake lasts decently long when stored properly, but that the quality of the taste and texture decline long before the cake becomes unsafe to eat. A cake stored in the fridge for a week may be edible, but may not taste quite as good as you remembered.
The ultimate limiting factor to how long said cake tastes good after the wedding celebration is over is the amount of air that touches it. If cake is wrapped up quickly after the party is over then it has a better chance of lasting for a long time. The best method for wrapping said wedding cake is to cover it first with plastic wrap and then with a layer of tinfoil (maybe even a couple of layers of tin foil if you want to be extra safe).
Something very important to consider is the filling used in the cake. While it may taste delicious the day of the wedding, filling made with berries or other fruit, and Bavarian cream filling both do not last as long inside the fridge or freezer, and said cake is best eaten sooner rather than later. Fudge, Oreo, and other similar chocolate fillings tend to last longer and will have less of a negative effect on the fridge and freezer life of your cake.
Keep this in mind if you are planning on keeping your cake for the year after your wedding! If you have a standard wedding cake with a traditional frosting filling, you should be just fine keeping it in the freezer and saving it for that special anniversary celebration.
Cheesecake
Cheesecake differs drastically from its other tasty companions in the cake department in that it has a much shorter fridge and freezer life. As the name implies, cheesecake has a large amount of cheese, and because of this, it has a decreased period of time within which it is safe and delicious to eat. Its fridge life is essentially the same as the fridge life of the dairy used to make it.
Cheesecake is best eaten within 3 to 5 days while being kept in the refrigerator, and it lasts for a couple of weeks in the freezer. Keep in mind that it still needs to be stored properly for the best results, just like all the other cakes on this list. Funnily enough though, in my personal experience, cheesecake is the one type of cake besides perhaps wedding cake that tastes just as good when you eat it later as to how it tasted when first served. In any case, make sure you eat it before it spoils!
Fruit Tart
If you’re feeling fancy, perhaps you have considered getting a fruit tart (or many fruit tarts) for your very own special occasion. it certainly carries a certain restrained sophistication to it in view of many other types of cakes. Is it safe to keep fruit tarts in the fridge, and if so, for how long?
Fruit tart is one type of cake that also requires eating quite a lot sooner than does say your standard birthday or wedding cake. Remember how wedding cake with berry filling doesn’t fare nearly as well being stored as wedding cake without? Well, it turns out that the fresh fruit, while incredibly delicious, is the culprit when it comes to fridge life for both the aforementioned wedding cake with fruit and fruit tarts.
The fruit in one of these tarts can get soggy pretty quickly, especially considering that it’s sitting in pastry cream. If you’ve ever had soggy fruit, you’ll know it’s undesirable at best and inedible at worst. Thus, it’s best to eat fruit tarts within a couple of days of storage in the fridge, as after that the fruit starts to get pretty limp.
At that point, it’s more of a “mush” than a “tart”. Now, why not freeze it you might say? Well, the sad fact of the matter is that the pastry cream used in fruit tarts doesn’t hold up well when frozen. So, you’re probably best off just eating the tart while it’s fresh than trying to keep it preserved for a date long in the future.
Cookie Cake
While arguably just a giant cookie with some frosting on it, there’s something uniquely special about cookie cakes that brings to mind the image of a particularly awesome birthday party. While I’ve never personally been to a party where there was even a single slice left of the cookie cake after the festivities had ended, perhaps you have run into the issue of having leftover cookie cake and are wondering how long it will stay good for.
You’re in luck! Cookie cakes actually last a little longer than other cakes in the fridge! Cookie cakes can last up to 5 days in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer. Cookie cakes are also stored in the same way as other cakes if you want the best results. Store them quickly to seal in the freshness.
Ice Cream Cake
Ice cream cake was a hallmark of many great birthday parties growing up for me, and I’m sure it was for a lot of other people as well. After all, it is pretty rare to find someone who doesn’t like ice cream. All that dairy is pretty filling though, so there’s a good chance that if your party is small, the amount of ice cream cake leftover may be considerable! The fridge is definitely not a desirable option to keep your ice cream cake preserved, because it will most definitely melt inside there. So what do you need to keep in mind when you stash it in the freezer?
According to Cold Stone Creamery in Rexburg, most ice cream cakes will last in the freezer for about 4 weeks but can last a little longer in some cases. The biggest factor in how long an ice cream cake will last is keeping it completely frozen! Don’t ever let it thaw out completely, as I can tell you personally that this will ruin the taste.
However, you may want to let your cake slightly thaw when you take it out to eat, as otherwise, you may experience some particularly horrible ice cream headaches when you go to take a bite and it will be hard to cut through. Either way, your ice cream cake will likely last for quite a long time.
Cupcakes
While in most regards cupcakes are just mini cakes, they also differ in that without the frosting on top, most cupcakes would be rather bland, so preserving the frosting of cupcakes is everything when it comes to keeping them good for longer. No one wants a cupcake with nasty dried-up frosting. So, what do you have to do after the party is over to keep those cakes fresh?
According to the Cocoa Bean Bakery in Rexburg, cupcakes are also only good for around a couple of days in the fridge. However, the problem is that the frosting can get ruined by moisture in the fridge. It is better if you only are planning on shelving the cupcakes for a couple of days to just keep them out of the fridge in an airtight container in order to keep them dry. Wrapping cupcakes to store them can be trickier than with cake, especially if the frosting on them is quite elaborate, but the same rules apply to the extent that you should wrap the cupcakes with multiple layers.
Baked Flour-less Cake
For whatever reason, be it allergies or simply a desire to eat less flour-based items in general, flourless cake is a delicious cake option that has grown in popularity in recent years. Do you even have to put this kind of cake in the fridge?
This type of flourless cake can be kept in an air-tight container in the fridge for about a week. In addition, nothing bad will happen if you freeze it, and it can last for about the same amount of time as your standard cake. It’s best not to leave it uncovered in the fridge due to its tendency to run dry. (Source
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Unbaked Flour-less Cake
Want to skip using the oven, or don’t have one? This may be the type of cake you want. If it doesn’t need to be baked, does it need to be refrigerated?
Unbaked cake can be left out without being refrigerated for about 2 to 4 days. Know that with both types of flour-less cakes, they can run relatively dry to begin with, so if you bake one of these and it’s already kind of dry, you run the risk of making it unpalatable from it being as dry as a brick.
