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Can anyone help re how long in advance can you make up cake mixture before using it

I don’t think I’d risk it might not rise properly, especially if there are any active ingredients in the mixture, as I think they start to work straight away, and would lose their potency.

Theoretically you need to get it in the oven as soon as possible because when you mix the wet and dry ingredients together the chemical reaction starts (you will see bubbles appear in the cake batter). Having said that, I sometimes keep some mixture back and use it to make a couple of fairy cakes for my daughter and they don’t go into the oven until the main cake is cooked as I don’t want to risk opening the oven door to remove the fairy cakes, and they have always been fine. It probably depends what kind of recipe you are using, mine is similar to Madeira. You could experiment but I think a couple of hours would be the maximum, I don’t think you could leave it overnight for example!