No....
Any leavening but yeast will wear out in that length of time.
Mix up the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, keep them separate until the last minute, mix and bake.
I would make the apple cake today and wrap it well and keep refrigerated and perhaps warm in the micro for serving.
Linda C

I concure..
I'd bake the Wed cake today, wrap and refrigerate.
And could you sneak in the Sunday cake in a day or two before Sunday? Or make it and freeze, pull out Friday night to the fridge.

The dense heavy type of cake should do fine made ahead a few days. If you refrigerate the apple cake, you probably should take it out to warm up to room temp before serving for best taste.

Measuring and mixing the dry ingredients ahead of time would be another alternative. Does the recipe have eggs? If you measure and mix the wet ingredients ahead of time, I think you should leave the eggs out and add them just before you mix in the dry ingredients.

Costco.

(L'Shanah Tovah, gellchom!)

Do I have to refrigerate the cake? It seems like the refrigerator dries it out so much.

re: the sunday cake -- I'm buying that! Lol -- I have my limits!

Here is the menu for Sunday. She wanted a fancy "ladies' autumn picnic." It's her 18th birthday.

Butternut squash soup (purchased) in sourdough bread bowls (from Panera)
Honey-soy glazed salmon with black sesame seeds
Cheese & onion stuffed redskin potato halves
Green salad with cranberries and toasted nutz

Birthday cake (from Kroger bakery)
apple pie & vanilla ice cream
pumpkin chiffon pie

She is going to be disappointed that the caterer that makes those little potatoes she loves told me that no way can she do it (too busy with Rosh HaShana orders), but she gave me the recipe, which fortunately can be made ahead and baked at the last minute. Not as disappointed as I am, though! This is a bit much. I hope she let me talk her out of the potatoes and/or one kind of pie. Thank goodness she wanted the purchased soup, bread bowls, and cake!

I still don't have a count yet, but I think it will probably be about 16 girls.

Thanks -- you all are the best.

Honey cake should be fine baked today for Wednesday without refrigerating. I think honey cake improves by having a little time for its flavor to blend. Apple cake baked today for Sunday would have been kind of long.

Cake wrapped well, in saran and in foil won't dry out in the refrigerator, and for am apple cake the flavors will marry very well.
Make the cheese and onion filling for the potatoes today and freeze, then Sunday fill the potatoes and bake.
Linda C

Never refrigerate baked cakes or breads unless absolutely necessary. The temperature of a refrigerator is the optimum temp for making baked goods go stale as quickly as possible. They actually go stale faster in the fridge than at room temp--that's a scientific fact. Of course, with a cake with custard filling or whipped cream frosting, you have to store in the fridge for safety's sake.

Keeping batter: Today's baking powder is formulated to be double acting. That means that it starts to bubble when you add the liquid, then completes the leavening process when exposed to heat. So if your recipe calls for only baking powder, you would get some rise from stored batter, but nowhere near what you would get from fresh batter. If your leavening agent is beaten egg whites or a baking soda/egg white combo, then it will be played out if you keep the batter. But you won't be happy with the results if you make the batter an hold it.

Your best bet? Make and bake your cakes now, wrap (without frosting, preferably) and freeze. Then, when you defrost them, leave them wrapped until they're room temp. That way any condensation that forms as they defrost will be on the outside of the wrapping and won't make the cakes soggy. They'll be fine if you do that, and you'll save yourself a lot of work.

What is "stale"? Dried out? If you wrap the cake or bread very well it won't dry out and will keep longer without molding nor going rancid or spoiling in the refrigerator.
That old canard about bread going stale faster in the refrigerator is pre WW II...before saran wraps and foil, when bread came in waxed paper and refrigerators didn't have "sta-fresh moisture control" or whatever your brand is called.
Cold circulating air dries things out very rapidly and not well wrapped bread will dry out rapidly.
Years ago, pre 1950, when Pepperidge farms was a small specialty bakery, they would deliver to specialty shops once a week. Their bread was only white, unsliced and double wrapped in waxed paper. Pepperidge recommended wrapping well and keeping it in the refrigerator.
Any chemical reaction that I can think of takes place more slowly at colder temperatures. But colder air can contain less moisture than warmer air, so you have to wrap very well to keep the moisture from evaporating.
Simply put, baked goods, IF WELL WRAPPED, keep longer under refrigeration than at room temperature.
Linda C

I froze a baked pie once and someone told me to keep it wrapped up tightly as it was thawing to stay fresher. It turned out wet and soggy. Ruined it! I would never do that again. I would thaw open.

I'll have to concur with Azzalea. Whenever I find myself up to my eyeballs in work, I'll bake my cakes in advance, wrap them tightly and freeze. That said, raw cake batters will survive in the fridge for several hours with little loss of its leavening power. But I don't recommend leaving the batter refrigerated any longer than that.

All cakes at a friend's bakery were always frozen within minutes of being removed from the oven; you will be surprised at how much moister your cakes will turn out, once thawed. To reiterate, leave the cakes tightly-wrapped while they thaw, and they'll be perfect.

Sol

A pie is different than a cake. It contains crisp parts and soft parts....that is dry stuff and wet stuff, and freezing and thawing tends to make everything uniformly crisp or moist....in other words the dampness of the filling invades the crisp crust, so thaw a pie in the open, or re-crisp the crust in the oven.

I agree with Azzalea, make the cake ahead of time, wrap well with parchment & Saran, then freeze. Take it out the night before the event to defrost (leave wrapped). Then unwrap a little before serving.

I do this all the time with the cakes I make, and in fact, freezing will make some cakes more moist.

I do it with cake too. But never again pie. Learned my lesson.