Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi all
I feel either this will be the strangest or the stupiest question of the day so please excuse me as I am new to this great hobby and still have huge amounts to learn.
My question is relating to cake transportation, it is my mum’s 70th birthday however I live in Scotland and my mum Lincolnshire. I am flying down for long weekend but taking a cake with me is not happening ?So my question is if the cake was made and covered in icing could it be transported via courier/ post? If so what would you recommend and how would you pack the cake? I thinking of the doing decorations either once there but time limited or taking them on flight, or posting as they appear they would travel if packaged well. Was thinking doing the tropical cake. Thanks for any advice you can offer. I would also welcome any other cake ideas where the decorations could be pre made and posted? Many Thanks Lauren

hi Lauren,

Transporting cakes is always a tricky one. Often on Paul´s 5 Day Courses students would be flying and almost always were allowed to take a cake onboard with them. However, when I asked the airlines for their policy it was all very vague. I know you won´t want to risk it. The next issue is that couriers can be hit or a miss in terms of how the cake arrives, but if it was just plain iced cakes with no decoration you could set them on a board and pad out the sides of the box to reduce the chance of movement and send it as robust a delivery box as you can find. This way you can complete the decoration down there. Another option is to find a local baker, but that maybe defeats the purpose. I´m afraid this hasn´t offered anything clear in terms of what to do, but I would have the covered cake(s) couriered for decoration once you get there. Send them a couple of days early so if they don´t arrive in a reasonable state them Plan B would be to take them on the flight.
Good luck.

Hi Lauren

This question has been raised before on the site but I don’ t think anyone has managed to hire a service successfully. You can see answers here: http://www.cakeflix.com/questions?s=courier+
However as David has already mentioned couriering cakes is a huge hit and miss business. There are dedicated chilled food couriers, some will transport cake but only if they are extremely well packed and in single tiers.
It’s possilbe Igloo might transport your cake: http://www.igloothermo.com/services/food-courier
You’d need to package the cakes individually in heavy duty double skinned boxes, that’s box within a box. See packaging solutions and guidelines here: https://www.ups.com/content/gb/en/resources/ship/packaging/guidelines/how_to2.html
Altogether it will be quite an expensive exercise!
As for the decorations, I believe the tropical sunset cake uses wafer paper flowers. These can be made up in advance. As long as they are well packaged, they can be either sent in the post/normal courier or carried in your hand luggage. David is the expert, I’m just adding to the mix! Hope your mum’s 70th birthday is a great success and you can transport her cakes safely. Good luck Lauren x