Listener ?: Traveling w/Baked Goods

Traveling with your baked goods.

Cookies- use a sturdy lidded container, stand them on their sides instead of on top of each other. The bottom cookies won’t get crushed, you can put more in the container, and you can pack them more snuggly together so they won’t shift around and break
Anything iced- I see lots of people sticking toothpicks in the baked items and covering them with plastic. Iced items don’t need to be covered until they are cut into, so you can simply place your plate in a box that the plate fits snuggly in. Even a picnic basket will work. If your box is too big, you can use a damp towel under the plate to keep it from sliding. You can also use a piece of the “no slip” drawer material that you can get at a lot of stores under the plate and under the box so it doesn’t slide around in your trunk.
Melt able items- if you are going long distances, keep the melt able items cool by placing reusable ice cubes on the bottom of an ice chest and then place of piece of cardboard on top of the ice cubes, then your plate or box of goodies. If you are planning on a really long trip and need to keep things cold overnight, dry ice can be used but use extreme caution, as you cannot touch dry ice with your bare hands.

A question that has come up is how to ship baked goods overseas. A package can take several weeks to get overseas, according to someone at the post office, and with how hot it is over there, I wouldn’t send anything that can melt or mold, so plan on sending sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, snickerdoodles, gingersnaps and the like. Snowballs in July would be a fun treat. Cake just isn’t hardy enough and would probably mold. I don’t even think that fruit cake would make it. The key is to pack everything snuggly so that as the package gets jostled about, there is no room for the cookies to move. Start by packing them in a sturdy plastic lidded disposable container between layers of clean tissue paper or waxed paper. Tape the container closed and pack the box between bubble wrap or clean paper. I don’t recommend newspaper because the ink rubs off. If you use styro popcorn, the contents of the shipping box will shift around. I tried shipping tomatoes packed in stryo popcorn to my mother-in-law in Alaska and she ended up receiving tomato juice because the styro popcorn allowed the tomatoes to shift around. When I send her peaches and tomatoes wrapped in tissue and padded with bubble wrap, all arrives safely.