If you don’t have an SUV or a van, don’t panic. You can still transport your cakes. In this post, I’m going to give you my do’s and don’ts of transporting a cake in a car.
Yep, the title is right. I transport my cakes in a car. I know, I know, everyone tells you not to do that, but sometimes you just make do with what you have. I’m here to tell you that you CAN transport a cake in a car.
Last year, my SUV blew up. Not the entire thing…just the engine. When I say blow up, I mean smoke coming out of the car. Yeah, it was intense. Replacing the engine was even worse. I had to auction off a kid to do it. (Ok, not really. I had to auction off two.)
Earlier that year, I had to replace the air conditioning. In Texas, the temperature can get above 100 degrees outside, so when I would get into my car, I could feel my lips melting off my face.
After dealing with those two issues, the final straw was my driver’s side window had stopped rolling up and down. That was it! I was tired of paying a high car payment in addition to expensive repairs and having to buy the expensive premium gas.
I thought about it and decided I really wanted a car again and not an SUV. I had already decided to slow down on cake orders and concentrate on getting my blog up and running. Plus, I’d have a lower payment and get much better gas mileage than the 15 mpg I was getting with my SUV.
I actually measured the trunk of this car before I purchased it to make sure it would be deep enough to put a two tier stacked cake in it. I also made sure I could fold down the entire back row of seats. Since it gets super hot here, I need those seats to fold down to open up the trunk to the rest of the car where the A/C can get to it.
My point is, if you only have a car to transport your cakes, don’t automatically think it can’t be done. If you’re waiting to start taking orders until you get better transportation, don’t! Take a look at what you have and see how it can work for you.
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So here are some Do’s and Dont’s for transporting cakes in a car:
DO’S AND DON’TS OF TRANSPORTING A CAKE IN A CAR:
DONT’S:
- Don’t set a cake on your seats. Even if your back seats fold down, you might be tempted to set your cakes on them. You don’t want to do that. Most likely they don’t lay flat. Even if they do, there is probably still a space between the folded down seats and the back of the front seats. There’s potential for the cake to slide and tilt. The same applies for the front seat. Seats aren’t level and if you have to slam on your breaks, well, then your dashboard is going to be covered in buttercream.
- Don’t put your cake in the trunk if it’s warm outside and your back seats don’t fold down to open up that area. I’m sure that’s a given, but I’ve actually had to tell some clients that when they were picking up a cake from me.
DO’S:
- You DO have a better chance of having a level surface if you put the cake on the floorboards. Push your front seat all the way back. Add some non slip shelf liner (the rubber stuff that’s in a grid pattern) on the floor and set the cake on that. If you feel it’ll be too tall, just take the tiers separately and put the cake together at the venue. You can set the other tiers in the back on the floor boards. You just want to make sure your car is very clean and that your cake is in a box. I also add a fluffly towel between the floor and the non-slip liner, then I add the cake on top of that.
- If your trunk opens up to the rest of the car, or it’s always cold in your environment, you can travel with them in the trunk. I have a few tricks for that below.
- DO put your cakes in a box. Since they will be traveling on either your floorboards or your trunk, you want them protected from any dust. For my tiered cakes, I just use a regular moving box that I get from Wal-Mart in the office supply aisle. I just estimate how tall the tier will be and then make sure the box is a bit WIDER than that. Notice that I said WIDER and not taller. I turn my boxes sideways so that the opening is on the side and not the top. Then all you have to do is slide your cake in and tape up the side of the box when you’re ready to move it.
TIPS FOR TRANSPORTING YOUR CAKE IN YOUR TRUNK:
First you’ll want to make sure your trunk is flat. My trunk has a rubber ‘thing’ on the bottom of it that has ridges, so I added a non-slip liner, a thin towel and then a flattened cardboard box over that to make it a smooth surface.
Next I add a non-slip liner across it and then a big fluffy towel.
Now here’s my secret weapon: You want to lesson the amount of jolt the cake could receive from riding in the trunk, but you don’t want to add any ‘bounce’ to it. You just want something that will absorb a little of the shock. So…..drumroll……..my secret weapon IS…….. A yoga mat!
Yep, simple, but I think it really makes a difference. It adds just enough cushion, but it doesn’t add any ‘bounce’ like foam might. It also acts as a non-slip surface. PERFECT!
So here’s the thing about my trunk…it’s a deep trunk, but there’s not a very big opening. The box will not go into the trunk without tilting it here and there. Well, that’s just not going to work when you’ve got a cake in the box that shouldn’t be tilted around and honestly it’s so heavy at that point, I couldn’t be moving it around like that anyway.
What works for me is that I place the EMPTY large box in the trunk on top of the fluffy towel and yoga mat. Then I grab the tiered cake and have someone hold the flaps of the box open for me while I set the cake in it. Then I seal up the box with tape.
So here’s an anecdote for ya: This past week, I made my step-son’s wedding cake. It was 85 degrees outside and partly cloudy, so I was a little lucky with that. I made sure that my back seats were folded down and had turned on the A/C full blast until the car was about as cool as it could get.
I stacked the two bottom tiers, set the empty box in my car on top of my fluffy towel and my yoga mat. I had one of the kids hold the box open for me and I placed the cake inside and taped up the box. I then placed the groom’s cake beside that in a box of its own.
I put the top tier in another box and placed that on the floor in front of the passenger seat on a fluffy towel and non-slip mat. I still had room in the back between the seats to put my emergency kit bag. DON’T FORGET THE EMERGENCY KIT!
I then put on a sweater (cuz that car got cold) and headed off to the venue. I had a two hour drive and I am here to tell you that the cake made it! No bulges, no shifting. Now I WILL tell you that I did put a center dowel in the bottom two tiers because I had such a long drive with it, so look at the structure of your cake and determine the best way to make it as sturdy as possible.
Now I can’t promise you that this method is perfect for every cake you’ll make, or that you’ll never have anyone stop short in front of you or that an animal won’t run out in front of your car. That kind of thing can happen no matter what kind of vehicle you’re transporting your cake in. We all know that transporting a cake when you don’t have an SUV or van is not the ideal situation, but with a little ingenuity and motivation, it CAN be done!
As always, if you have any questions, let me know! If you have more suggestions, I’m all ears. I’d love to hear from you!
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J’aime beaucoup vos tutoriels ils sont bien expliqués et avec beaucoup d’humour. Merci de nous les faire partager.
Merci beaucoup!
Awesome tips!! How do you pack the cake in the box? Do you have tips for how to pack so that the cake doesn’t slide around in the box?
Hi Kathy, I use the box sideways, so I can just slide the cake into it and then close the box lids like double doors. That probably doesn’t make any sense, so let me see if I can do better. lol
So, on smaller cakes, I just use regular cake boxes. I set the cake on the cake box and then lift up the sides of the box and attach them all together. For a large cake though, I just get a large box (one that will actually fit in my car). I actually stand it up on it’s side, so that the top opening is on the side. That way, I can just slide the cake in.
The most important thing is to make sure the cake is sitting on a bottom cake base that is the same width as the box. That way it won’t slide around. If the cake base is smaller, then it could all slide around in the box. If you can’t get it a box the exact width of your cake base, just get it pretty darn close and then set a piece of that rubbery shelf liner into the bottom of the box, then add the cake. That shelf liner really does help to keep things from sliding too much. Just make sure the bottom cake base is as close as you can get it in size as the bottom of your box. I hope that helps!
Hi. Do you keep your tiers frozen before transporting them? If so, are the decorations on? I’ll be using modeling chocolate and marzipan decorations and I’m not sure how they’ll freeze.
Hi Shireen, I don’t freeze them before I transport. I like to keep everything room temperature (unless there’s something perishable in the cake). Sometimes I will chill the cake in the fridge for about half an hour or so before I transport it though. That just makes it a bit more firm for traveling. I wouldn’t freeze the whole thing before you travel. It could cause a lot of condensation issues. Hope this helps!
Hello Kara,
This weekend I had my first naked cake order. it was two tiers (10 and 8 inch) with sunflowers.
I live in AZ and the weather was around 95% outside. I did transport, on a level surface with a mat underneath each tier. However I did not have the cakes in boxes, I think this was my first mistake. When I went to deliver the cake by buttercream was melting, even though I had the air conditioner on full blast. Do you happen to have a good recipe for a sturdy buttercream? Also I did put four dowels in the bottom tier but when I went to stack the top tier on top, the bottom cake feel apart in the back once the top layer smashed the layer. it was just a disaster. Why did my cake crumble like that? I can only think it was the heat. The cake was as room temperature when I went to deliver it. I think I need to use a better buttercream for cakes in AZ and next time I transport I will be using a box.
Hi Marie, I’m so sorry the cake fell apart on you! I know that had to be so disappointing after all the time you spent making it.
First, I’ll give you some tips for a more heat stable buttercream. I do have a post planned for my heat stable buttercream recipe, but I’ll go ahead and tell you that it’s basically my basic vanilla buttercream recipe, but you’ll use shortening instead of the butter. If you can get the high-ratio shortening, it seems creamier to me. When you make this buttercream, you’ll want to add a pinch of salt to cut the sweetness and you may want to add in a bit of butter extract to give it a more buttery taste. Buttercream made with shortening will stand up better to warmer climates than an all butter buttercream. If it’s really super hot and the cake will go outside, or it’s in direct sunlight, then sometimes there’s just nothing you can do to keep it from melting. Next time before transporting, you might try putting it in the fridge about a half hour or hour before leaving…that may help a bit. I try not to get it too cold though because I don’t want too much condensation going on.
As far as stacking cakes go…I like to use the heavy plastic dowels called ‘poly dowels’. You can get them from Global Sugar Art. They have two different sizes that you can use. I don’t use wooden dowels although many people do. Also some people use straws. If you do that, make sure they are the sturdy plastic bubble tea straws and not regular straws as those just won’t work. I usually put more than 4 dowels in my 10 inch cakes when I’m stacking an 8 inch on top of it. I probably use maybe 7 of the smaller poly dowels. If using the bigger poly dowels, I’ll use maybe 4-5. It’s probably overkill, but I tend to go for extra stability. Also I like to insert one dowel (wherever the highest part of the bottom tier is), mark it where it hits the top of the cake, pull it out and then cut all the dowels that same exact length. That way I know the cake will be level. Also did you use a cake board under the top tier? I’m sure you did, but I just like to check. This was a lot of information, but I hope it helps!
Hi there!
This is such an extremely helpful post thank you! I had a question, as you had mentioned the 2 tier cake was secured with a centre dowel. What happens when you get to the venue and you want to attach the 3rd tier? or in addition to that 4th? How do you secure that? I don’t know if you would put another centre dowel?
Also, if you have a 4 tier cake, do you secure 1st and 2nd tier with a center dowel box it, then secure 3rd and 4th tier with a centre dowel, box it and then how do you attach them together at the venue? Any help would be appreciated!
Hi there…those are good questions. When you add the center dowel to a cake, make sure that dowel isn’t sticking up out of the top tier. You’ll want to measure the height of the cakes to make sure and cut it the length you need it to be. This way the tier will be nice and flat when you go to add the other tiers later.
So, for the other cake tiers you’ll be adding later, just stack them when you get to the venue. Make sure the cake tiers you’re setting them on have support dowels in them (but obviously the top tier doesn’t need doweling because nothing will be sitting on it.) You don’t really need another center dowel.
I usually just traveled with the other tiers individually boxed, but you can stack them two by two if you wanted. If I added the top tiers at the wedding, then I didn’t add another center dowel. The only reason I add the center dowel, was to keep the cakes I’d already stacked more stable during transport. Most of my cake orders in my area were for two and three tiered cakes…not four. But if I had more tiers, I would just box up those other tiers individually and just stack them at the venue. I hope this helps!
Thank you so much for your response! One last question sorry, if the top tiers aren’t centre doweled into the other cakes, is there ever concern of them shifting while being moved at the venue? like the top tier all of a sudden falling off of the doweled cakes? does the buttercream/royal icing really hold that tier in place?
Well there’s always a chance of something happening if the cake is moved, but I would normally just set it up where it would stay. It’s whatever you feel most comfortable with though. Personally, I just center-doweled the bottom two or three tiers, then just set the others on top at the venue and on the table that it would actually stay on. I also let the customer know (in my contract) that once the cake was delivered, I wasn’t responsible for any mishaps related to someone bumping it or moving it. I also left instructions on how to take the cake apart and cut it. Hope that makes sense!
That makes total sense, thank you so much for taking the time to respond!!
You’re welcome…happy to help. 🙂
I have a 2 tier cake that has to travel 2 1/2 hrs. I will be separating the tiers the issue is how do I prevent the top decoration not to break. It is a giant sunflower that hangs over the top tier. It’s made of fondant
Hi Shelley, you could always add the sunflower at the venue if you wanted, but if you want to go ahead and attach it before travelling, you could add bits of paper towels, foam or kleenex between the petals, so they wouldn’t knock against each other while traveling.
How do you take a wedding cake apart, and cut?
That’s a big question. There are several ways you could do it. The most common way is to take the top tier off first (save it if that’s what the bride wants), if not, go ahead and cut it and serve it, then move on to the next tiers. So, basically you’ll just cut one tier at a time. The safest way to do that is to un-stack that tier before you go slicing it. It’s more stable that way. You can cut a couple inches in from the outside and cut a circle, then cut slices out of that outer circle. Some people just slice a huge chunk off the side of the cake, face it down and then cut that into slices. It’s kind of just by personal preference, but whichever way you choose to slice it, make sure you take that into account when ordering the cake or when designing the cake, so you’ll make sure you have enough slices to go around. That may have been confusing, but here are a couple video links that may be helpful. The first video is what I’m used to doing, but the second video is another way it could be done. 1st video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j9VwBKT9po 2nd video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEGLm_5zZn0
I had a wedding cake disaster a year ago and I haven’t made a wedding cake since. It was for a family member as well which is worse because I still have to associate with those people at parties and such.
First off, I work 7 days on/7 days off with no PTO. I made sure months before that the event would be on my week off so that I could just pay attention to the cake. But, my supervisor wanted me to change weeks a month before the wedding so I couldn’t get that week off. In between 10 hour shifts, all I did was bake. By the end, I only got 2 hours of sleep in 72 hours. I started baking and cooling the layers 2 days before the event (I have a small oven). Then the day came to put everything together. The wedding wasn’t until 6:30pm so I figured I would get a couple hours of sleep after work and start around 11am and it would be fine…. Wrong.
The bride wanted Italian meringue buttercream. I’ve done it for cakes in the past (when it was cooler outside) and they turned out great but those were usually mild/cooler temperatures. The wedding was the beginning of May. where I live, you don’t know if it will be 60-70 degrees or 80-90. With my luck, it was 80-90. I lived up a canyon so it was about 75°F instead of the 80-90° in the valley. However, that house didn’t have air conditioning… Italian meringue needs to cool down while you are mixing it and it wasn’t cooling down fast enough. Eventually it cooled down but it took… forever! I was able to frost the bottom tier but then it started melting as soon as I iced it. I quickly put it in the freezer because the fridge wasn’t cooling it down quickly enough. The middle teir was a pain to ice. It was getting hotter in the kitchen and everytime I would smooth a side down, I could see the icing melt down slightly. I eventually got it smooth and as non-melty looking as possible and stuck it in the freezer with the other teir. I guess it took me a while battling the melting cake as well as filling cupcakes that the next thing I knew, I only had 3 hours until the wedding! And the venue was an hour away!!! It was seriously like a nightmare come true. Trying to maintain my calm, I quickly started on the top teir. I guess it got even hotter in the kitchen because as I was icing the top teir, a streak of the raspberry filling popped out and smeared across the cake. I had a little mental breakdown at that point. I didn’t have time to bake and cool another top teir. I also didn’t have time to make another rasberry filling (used fresh raspberries and cooked it and everything) and more of the filling kept coming through the side which made fixing the icing impossible… so I scraped the filling and icing off, mixed them together and made a raspberry cream filling. It tasted delicious and was good enough for me. The cake was still intact so I made another batch of icing and re-stacked the layers again and attempted to ice it again. The icing was still trying to melt but I got it as smooth as I could under the circumstances and stuck it in the freezer. After that fiasco, I only had like a half hour before I needed to leave! Not enough time to do everything and still be on time. I think I started tearing up at that point. At least all the cupcakes were done and ready to go (all 250 of them). I waited about 20 min for the cake to cool because if I hadn’t, it would’ve arrived a melting disaster. I wanted them to at least have a stable cake to cut into at the very least even if it was later than expected. After the cake cooled, I then attempted to stack and decorate the layers as well as I could with the time that I had… Which was no time. I put a hecka lot of dowels in that thing and finally got it decorated.
Finally, transportation time came… The best part of the whole wonderful experience! I was going to use my mom’s minivan because the back seats folded down in the back… However, she decided to take a random road trip that week… And there was no way that cake was going to fit in my little Nissan Sentra. So, I got to use my dad’s rickety old truck! I had him start his air conditioning an hour before but it was still pretty warm by the time we got in.
At this point I was pretty broken and I just shrugged and was like, here goes nothing! We stuffed all the cupcakes in and I got in the back cab area and held that cake on my lap the entire way to the venue. Every little bump on the road made my heart explode. My dad had to slow down because his truck was so rickety that if he hadn’t, that cake would’ve shaken apart even with those dowels in. I saw the icing start to get warm and try to melt again. By the time we made it to the venue, I was an hour and a half late. I feel so terrible. My grandma looked like she wanted to kill me and I was just trying to keep it together while apologising to everyone. I got the cake to the cake table (which was in the sun), set up the cupcakes, was about to go over to the bride and apologise but the parents stopped me. I guess they didn’t want me apologising to her? I still don’t know. I told them I was sorry and no payment was required, then left. On the way home I pulled off the side of the road and bawled. I still had to work a ten hour shift a couple hours after that. Everytime I think about cakes now, I just cringe.
Oh April, bless your heart, that sounds like a nightmare! I’m so sorry all that happened! It’s like everything just kept snowballing downhill. Wow, I don’t blame you for not even wanting to think about cakes…that all sounds traumatic. I can’t imagine having to work that much at my day job and then do a full wedding cake and cupcakes like that. When I was still selling cakes, I was terrified of running out of time…that’s truly a nightmare. I hope at some point you’re able to think about cake again and not cringe…at least to just make a nice one for yourself. 🙂
How do you keep the cake from sliding around inside the box? I have a simple tall rosette buttercream cake that I’m making for my daughter’s birthday. It’s at a pool an hour and a half away. I’m seriously considering taking it crumb coated, but piping the rosettes in the trunk of my suv on arrival. I’m afraid the cake will slip and the buttercream will mush otherwise.
Hi Zelda, yes you could always pipe everything once you got there if that makes you feel less stressed. I know it’s stressful transporting cakes. What I do to keep it sliding in the box though is that the cake base needs to be the same width of the box. So let’s say that the cake base is 10 inches round, then the cake box needs to be a 10 inch as well. Then there’s not room for the cake board to slide in that box.
The other thing is that the actual cake will sit on it’s own cake board (the same size as the cake), then that will sit on a larger cake base. You can add a little melted candy melts or hot glue to that larger cake base and then attach the cake tier (which has a cake board on the bottom of it the same size as the cake) to it. That’ll keep it sturdy as well. I hope that made sense.
Also I find that if I add some of that non-skid drawer liner (it’s like shelf paper, but it’s that bumpy rubbery kind), anyway if I add that under the large cake base, and under the actual cake box, that helps keep it from sliding around as well.
The biggest thing though is that the box doesn’t need to be bigger than the cake base. Whatever size the cake base is, get a box that size as well.
You’re still going to need to be careful turning corners, but those tips will help a bunch with keeping it all intact.
I hope that helps!
I’m making a beer stein cake with fondant wrap the top will be buttercream bubbles I live in the desert and right now the temperature is over 109 I’m supposed to deliver the cake for a birthday party an hour away. Once the fondant go on I can not refresh the cake? And I have no facilities cool enough to apply buttercream when I get there so I’ll have to apply ahead and travel. I have used the shorting buttercream recipes before is that the more sturdy buttercream? I was hoping you had a few ideas that could help. Thanks
Hi Jo, Wow 109 degrees! Goodness this will be a challenge. I will say that many people chill their cakes, even when they’re fondant cakes. The cake may form condensation on it after it reaches room temp, but in your case you might have to just chance it. I mean better to take the chance of some condensation than it completely melting on you. I’d get the cake chilled, and chill the car as cold as you can get it. See if you can get a box you can pack it in safely. I’ve even heard of people using dry ice inside their boxes to keep the cake cool. I’ve never tried this buy Avalon from Avalon cakes has a post about it. She shows how to make an insulated cake box. You might want to check that out…here’s a link to it: https://avaloncakesschool.com/delivery-box/
Shortening based buttercream is probably the most heat stable kind…although it’ll still melt if it gets hot enough. You can add a tablespoon or two of meringue powder to it to help as well. When using shortening based buttercream, you could add in a small pinch of salt to cut the sweetness and add in a bit of butter extract to help with the taste. I hope this helps!
This is soooo helpful! Thank you so much for spending the time reply and for sharing your tips and tricks :).
Kathy, you’re so welcome and glad I was able to help!