There was only one teensy drawback: I’ve shipped cookies and brownies and killer pecan bars, however in all my years of baking, I’d by no means tried to carry a layer cake on a airplane.
Thus started a journey that included intensive analysis, TSA brokers, cake carriers, useful strangers and buttercream fastidiously spooned into 3.4-ounce piping luggage. For each baker with an uncontrollable urge to journey with a favourite cake, right here is a survival guide.
The reply to your first query: Yes, you possibly can fly with a cake. You can carry it on (the airways will depend it as a private merchandise) and even test it in your baggage.
But what sort of cake? A pound, Bundt or another dense crumb will survive virtually any journey and can final for days. But when you’re bringing a traditional birthday or wedding ceremony cake — with two to 4 layers, fillings and frosting, piped flowers or different elaborations — then you’ve to think about the size of the journey and the way lengthy the cake can safely journey.
“I’ve shipped wedding cakes, so I treat carry-on much like a shipped cake,” says B. Keith Ryder, a retired cake designer from Virginia. “I freeze them. Cold cakes travel better.”
Traditional cake flavors (comparable to vanilla, chocolate and carrot) could be baked, assembled and frozen upfront. Ryder gained’t fly with muffins crammed with contemporary fruit, pastry lotions, mousses or whipped cream, which don’t freeze or thaw properly. “It’s got to be a ganache or buttercream.”
But even simply a refrigerated cake, except uncovered to excessive warmth, can journey all day be safely served that night time — or popped into a fridge on arrival. A cake can sit out at the very least 8 hours; these coated in fondant will final even longer.
For Mary, I made a decision to make a nine-inch, four-layer cake crammed with lemon curd, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and Swiss meringue buttercream. Most normal cake sizes match below a seat; the following hurdle is determining how to carry it.
I’ve a number of cake containers (due to course I do), however I used to be flying on a small airplane. Which meant that area for carry-ons can be restricted. Which additionally meant I wanted to analysis what sort of plane and its under-seat dimensions. (You can attempt calling the airline, however your greatest guess is sticking to the its under-seat baggage suggestions.) I in all probability had 12 inches in width however solely 7 inches in top, which eradicated all these cake carriers which may have labored on a bigger jet.
“You don’t want to use a cake box — you want to use a sturdy cardboard box,” says Barb Evans, who lives in Illinois and designed, baked and delivered skilled wedding ceremony muffins for 42 years. Ideally, the cake sits on a bigger cardboard spherical the identical diameter of the field, and one facet of the field is lower like a drawbridge so the cake can slide in. “Put the drawbridge back up, and tape the sides well with duct or packing tape. Make sure to bring extra tape with you in case you have to open it for the TSA.” She additionally recommends including a window on prime coated with plastic so safety officers can see inside.
Ryder wraps a frozen cake in plastic wrap, places it a cake field, then fills the field with foam packing pellets so nothing can shift in transit. That field additionally will get wrapped in plastic and goes into bigger field with extra packing, and usually arrives nonetheless frozen.
I settled on a 12-by-12-by-6-inch cardboard field, which might maintain the four-layer cake on a 12-inch spherical cake board. The field was too brief to accommodate decorations — I’d have to add them proper earlier than the celebration. I packaged completely different colours of buttercream into small piping luggage.
The day earlier than the journey, I baked, crammed and frosted the cake — the buttercream created a seal to hold it moist. I put a small dowel down the middle to hold the layers from shifting. Then I refrigerated it in a single day, taking it out simply because the Uber driver pulled up.
Pro tip: Layer muffins produced from scratch are heavy. I knew this, however carrying a cake to your automobile and carrying it via an airport are very completely different experiences. With my curler bag in a single hand, I stood within the safety line with what felt like 20 kilos balanced on the opposite arm.
For as soon as, I arrived on the airport with loads of further time. I already knew the TSA allowed muffins, however I didn’t understand how lengthy an inspection may take or if my little luggage of buttercream could be examined.
Technically, the TSA classifies frosting as a liquid. “If you can spill it, spray it, spread it, pump it or pour it, then it’s not a solid and should be packed in a checked bag,” says spokesman Dan Velez. If you carry on frosting, it has to be in 3.4-ounce containers, that are then positioned in a clear quart bag. Velez says it’s a good thought if the frosting luggage can open in case the TSA needs to take a look at a small pattern for explosives.
I made a decision towards ice or gel packs to hold the cake cool, nevertheless it seems the TSA are okay with them so long as they’re frozen strong when introduced for screening. If they’re partially melted, slushy, or have any liquid on the backside, they have to meet 3.4-ounce requirement.
Evans is aware of bakers who’ve purchased airline seats for tiered wedding ceremony muffins or gingerbread homes, however the field has to be brief sufficient to match into the TSA’s X-ray machine, which is about 12 to 15 inches excessive, he says — after which should put on a seat belt.
Although the TSA doesn’t monitor what number of muffins fly the pleasant skies, it sees loads of meals on the holidays. Lots of pies, that are superb. Gravy, cranberry sauce and jam all fall below the liquid restrictions.
Of course, there’s all the time the choice of checking the cake layers and a limiteless container of frosting — however an assembled cake won’t survive baggage handlers. “You can check the cake,” says Velez. “But you’re pushing it.”
You might expertise turbulence
Should you ever put a cake within the overhead?
Ryder’s frozen cake is ok up there; I rejected the overhead as a result of I couldn’t decide the precise dimensions, and I wasn’t prepared to probability a slope, which would depart the cake leaning at an angle. Or it may slide, bounce or in any other case bang round, none of which appeared like a good thought.
Although I had researched the peak, I forgot in regards to the regular course of of truly getting a bag below the seat: You tip it at an angle then slide it. A passenger throughout the aisle took pity on me, and we as a substitute fastidiously inched the field from the aisle to below the seat.
That’s why Evans advises creating some sort of deal with — even utilizing duct tape across the field — to transfer it up and down with out tipping.
At the tip of the 90-minute flight, the cake was nonetheless cool to the contact. The dinner was in two hours. I managed to get the cake off the airplane and to the resort, the place I had 60 minutes to add piped buttercream flowers, edible glitter and gold accents. When I used to be performed, the room regarded like a murder-by-frosting crime scene.
So shut and but to date. After a brief drive and one unnerving sharp curve, the cake arrived at its last vacation spot, the place it was safely tucked on a counter and served a couple hours later with singing, a birthday want and glowing critiques.
But let’s say that curve had decreased it to a toppled mess. There would have been a tear or two, then I might have given Mary a hug and my cake wreck. We had survived the previous two years, we have been celebrating with pals, and that was extra vital than any cake.
Just warn everybody that all of it may go off the rails. “Hey, I have no control over some parts of this process,” says Ryder. “It might be crumbs by the time I get there — but it will still taste delicious.”