Is It Okay To Store Frosting At Room Temperature?

Autumn is definitely the advent of cake season. It may feel like every time you turn around you are baking cupcakes for a community fall festival or a bake sale at the kids' school. And then there are all those birthday parties and entertaining moments you might have planned as the weather turns cooler and we retreat to our home dining rooms. There is a lot of cake baking to be had in the fall. 

There's also a lot of frosting to be made. And whether you love the brown butter cream frosting that tops your cardamon cake or you prefer an applesauce cake with a cream cheese frosting, you are bound to make more frosting than your cake can hold. So what do you do with the leftover frosting? Clearly you don't want to waste it, but how do you store it?

As All Recipes points out, some frostings, like those of the cream cheese variety, need to be refrigerated, and Baking How shares that the same is true for whipped cream frostings you might make for your cakes. But do all frostings need to be stored in your fridge?

The answer to this question is yes and no. According to Kitchn, buttercream frostings do not need to be stored in the refrigerator — at least not right away. The cooking site explains that if you plan on using it within a couple of days, you should feel free to store it in an air tight container on your countertop. However, if you do not have any immediate needs for the frosting, you might want to put it in the fridge. 

The Baking Nook says if you choose to store your buttercream frosting in the fridge, you can do so for about two months as long as it is in that air tight container so the taste and texture aren't compromised. If you need longer, the blogger suggests keeping it in the freezer where you can keep it for six months. Additionally, Food.com says you can also make a no refrigeration bakery frosting that will keep at room temperature — and that also has a shelf life of three months if you store it in the refrigerator.

When you are ready to use that leftover frosting that has been stored in the fridge, Kitchn recommends allowing the container it is stored in to set unopened for about an hour at room temperature so it can soften up.