Going to Sydney’s Cake Picnic? This is how to transport a cake so it arrives in one piece

Balancing a cake on your lap can be a white-knuckle ride − just ask my Dad, who once ferried a croquembouche tower on his knee in a Volkswagen Beetle along winding mountain roads.

But fear not. These tips from the professionals and a seasoned home baker (yours truly) will help you get your Cake Picnic showstopper from A to B, securely and stress-free.

Boxing clever

Available from party stores, kitchen supply stores and some $2 shops, cake boxes are often sold flat-packed, so secure the sides of the box with sticky tape for extra stability.

In her book Bake My Day, cake creative Katherine Sabbath suggests: “Rather than lower the cake inside the box, l use a box cutter to open up one side of the box so that the cake can easily slide in and out.”

Allow for a border: the cake board should be slightly wider than your cake. Then, choose a cake box that matches the width of the board for a snug fit. (Note that most boxes, like baking tins, are still sold in inches.)

“I like security − so that means a sturdy cake box and then a matching-size cake board. So an eight-inch cake will sit on top of a nine-inch cake board and fit into a nine-inch cake box. This means nothing moves,” says Good Food’s Better Baking columnist Emelia Jackson.

Cake boxes are available in varying heights, and Melbourne cake maker Alice Bennett, aka Miss Trixie, recommends allowing extra depth so you don’t “smush” anything on the top of the cake.

Riding shotgun

I have been known to strap my precious cake cargo in with a seatbelt, but Jackson, Bennett and Sabbath insist that placing the box in the boot or front passenger footwell works best. Because car seats lean slightly, these flat surfaces are the only way to keep your bake level.

“Nothing hurts a cake maker more than seeing a client pick up a cake and put it on their sloping, angled front seat!” says Jackson.

Non-slip to avoid slop and slap

Bennett recommends placing a piece of non-slip mat beneath the cake board inside the box. She also keeps a roll of rubber slip mat, available from Bunnings or $2 shops, in the boot of her car to place beneath the box, too.

Sabbath prefers to position a silicone baking mat beneath the box, but suggests a silicone pot holder, a yoga mat or a rubber cabinet liner as alternatives.

Cake construction

My tips

1. Place a small blob of buttercream in the centre of the cake board to stick the bottom cake layer in place.
2. The layers must be level − you don’t want a leaning tower of cake, so trim any humps that appear during the bake.
3. Allow time for the crumb coat − a thin layer of icing over the cake designed to ensure a smooth, crumb-free finish − to set before applying your final layer. This base coat ensures a smooth finish and makes it much easier to scrape off and redo any askew piping.

Bennett and Sabbath recommend using the dam method for soft fillings such as fruit compote, caramel, curd or jam.

“[Pipe] a border of buttercream around the edge of each layer, before loading the centre with the soft filling. This will hold the cake layers up and also keep the filling from sliding around too much; think of it as a fence or dam to hold in your filling,” Sabbath writes in Bake My Day. Tip: Let this firm up for 10 minutes in the fridge before proceeding with each additional layer.

The pros recommend using dowels to support multi-tiered cakes, especially for dense, heavy cakes such as mud cake. A secondary cake board can then be positioned atop the dowels, adding stability between the tiers, with each tier built onto its own cake board.

For home bakers, Bennett suggests swapping wooden dowels, which can be difficult to resize, for plastic bubble tea straws. They’re easily trimmed with scissors to sit flush with the top of each cake tier.

The icing on the cake

Cake Picnic founder Elisa Sunga, who is travelling to Australia to host the local events, has found that fragile elements and whipped creams do not fare well in transport and at the picnics.

“I would recommend refrigerating the cake as soon as it’s made and all the way up to leaving the house. Keeping the cake cold will help a lot with the transport − making sure to avoid melting or structural problems.”

The other bakers all favour buttercream icing for its stability, and Jackson opts for extra security: “I like to bake and decorate the day prior and keep the cake in the fridge overnight or even for two days to really let the butter[cream] get rock hard.”

But remember that buttercream is best enjoyed at room temperature. “Keep it in the fridge right up until you get in the car or on PT to bring it in [for Cake Picnic],” says Bennett. “By the time you get in, that travel journey will help bring the cake down to room temperature … which will make it really nice for eating.”

The sold-out Cake Picnic makes its Australian debut at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival on Saturday, March 21, and in Sydney on Saturday, March 28.