Hi, I have a baking question, hope you can help.?!
Answers:
The answer is a categorical and emphatic NO if left for any time like 2 hours apart the risk of contamination they will fail to rise. Most cake batters etc will freeze and cook from frozen. So why not do that. Also filling a domestic oven to capacity will create cold/hot spots as the air will not circulate inside the oven so you will have to rotate the food in the oven to give an even cooking. So unless you have an industrial oven or a very good domestic then it is not a good idea to cram it full.
Retired chef
You should stagger the baking as some things don't like to be baked with others or like to be on the top rack.
Also, if you are using a leavening agent, like yeast or baking soda you should not wait along time to bake as they will fall or have big gas bubbles under the crust.
When you start to make cookies, get all the ingredients out and ready but don't add the liquid until you are ready to bake that batch of cookies. When the last pan of the first batch of cookies are in the oven, add the liquid to the next batch so it will be ready to bake when the baking cookies come out of the oven.
This can work for quick breads or yeast breads, too.
I wouldn't leave them for more then an hour , but if you have used bicarb/ baking soda (which I doubt it for cakes, but you never know!) then you would need to bake immediately
Alternatively why not only make half or quarter a batch of mixture at the time so nothing is sitting around.
Good Luck
Unless It has yeast in the dough I would not let it sit. Have you thought measuring dry ingredients in a plastic bag and wet ingredients in a bowl for each different recipe and preparing all the tins.
Then you could do the mixing and tinning while the oven is preheating.
Why don't you plan to make the cake when you know you have other things to cook??
The other answers are right, but if you dont need it soon and would otherwise be leaving it on the bench, just make the batter when there are other things to make.
I don't think they should be left too long or the air that you have whipped in during the mixing may escape and they will turn out heavy and flat.