Set it where for what output? Have you looked at Time::setToStringFormat() ?
Having come from java technologies many years ago, then php, then mvc then laravel, and after deciding laravel has gotton out of hand I figured I would try cakephp, it’s been around and is / should be stable. Next I decide to try the forum. I know of no other way to ask such a simple question.
Set it where
Config
for what output
yyyy-mm-dd as stated.
I wound up having to
date_format($row->lastedit, 'Y-m-d H:i:s')
Now it would seem to me a framework as old and stable as cake would have a config setting to set how a date is to be displayed.