Transporting pie can be as easy as, well, pie

Before I discovered my secret to transporting cakes, pies, and other delicate food items safely, I went through a lot of trial and error. I tried various types of containers and boxes, built up “dams” around the object made of towels and pillows, and even resorted to holding the food for short car trips that seemingly took forever because I was trying to balance a cake while every driver on the road cut in front of us, causing my husband to apply the brakes with vigor. But then I found out a great way to keep things from moving about, which Taste of Home Magazine recently wrote about: using shelf liner.

They describe their fail-safe way to transport pie, which involves wrapping in foil, placing the wrapped pie on a sheet pan and wrapping again with foil, then using a piece of shelf liner – the grippy kind that is soft and squishy, not the smooth type – to anchor the sheet pan in a box which is placed on the floor of the car. I don’t know about you, but my compact car doesn’t have enough floor space for this to work; I have to put it in the cargo area of the hatchback. But the method is sound. I dispense with the double wrapping of foil and just place the pie dish (or cake plate) directly in the box on top of the shelf liner, and also use a layer of shelf liner under the box.

It is amazing how well that stuff holds things in place. I have transported a wedding cake 50 miles using this method (and very careful driving habits). This won’t work on really tall items – a two-layer cake is fine, but more than that might be iffy. For extra protection, I have also used marshmallows on skewers anchored into a cake to keep it from moving around in the box. I fixed the small holes this created in the frosting once I got to my destination. I also use shelf liner to hold cake rounds steady on a decorating turntable, and as cushioning between serving dishes that are stacked in cabinets. Do you have any other good food transport tips to share?

Photo of Blue-ribbon apple pie from Taste of Home Magazine