Timing for baking cakes

I have my typical nightmare (in a good way - I do love it!) at this time of year. DD1's birthday is this Thursday. DD2's is next Tuesday. Saturday they have a combined birthday party for friends and Sunday for family. So four cakes. Friday we're out at another birthday party for a friend of DD1's. In between cooking stuff for their birthday party on Saturday, cleaning the house etc etc I'm starting to stress about getting it all done.

I was thinking I would bake the cakes for the girls' weekend parties either tomorrow or Wednesday and then freeze them - they have asked for a rainbow layer cake. Do you think I should actually assemble the cake with the buttercream in between the layers and then freeze it, or just freeze each of the cake layers separately for now and assemble it all and then decorate on Friday? I've frozen un-iced cakes before and they were fine, but never with any icing.

You can freeze buttercream, and you can freeze cake, so you could freeze them together. Personally I wouldn't though. I would freeze them separately. Even if you make the buttercream ahead and freeze it, I wouldn't assemble then freeze the cake. Just my personal preference.

There are a few great baking forums and websites that have some really great and specific information about freezing and thawing cakes and decorating them etc and timelines. Have a bit of a google and you will find them easily. HTH!

And good luck with the cakes! (Make sure you post a pic so we can see!!!)

just mooching the info as I'm starting to think about how to do Spock's cake =)

I agree with Limeslice bake and freeze in assembled some people prefer to work with frozen cakes as it minimizes the crumbs.

thanks lovelies. Will just freeze the cake.

Stupid me black_rose. I always put my cakes in the freezer for a bit once I get to covering! Maybe I should spend less time stressing and more time thinking clearly ;-)

I've heard with those layer cakes that some people freeze the layers of buttercream separately before assembly anyway so the layers don't slide around. (So you line the tin with paper, put in a layer of buttercream to desired thickness, another layer of paper, freeze & store then assemble while still frozen.) I also heard you can use straws for stability instead of dowel... but not sure if you could stick straws into frozen cake & buttercream!