How to Transport a Cake Without Ruining It

On the floor of the boot, flat, with the box closed. The floor is the only surface in a car that stays level through a corner; a seat is sloped and a lap moves with the person sitting in it. Put something either side of the box so it cannot slide — a bag of shopping on each flank does the job better than anything sold for the purpose.

What not to do: stack anything on the lid, carry it in the footwell where a passenger will brace against it, or hold it. A cake held on a lap has survived exactly as many journeys as the person holding it has braked.

Cooler than comfortable, and cooled before the cake goes in. Buttercream and ganache both soften with heat, and a cake that softens in transit does not firm back into the shape it had: the decoration slides and stays slid. On a warm day, run the air conditioning for a few minutes with the doors shut before you collect, park in shade while you load, and take the shortest route rather than the prettiest.

Cream fillings are the part that matters for safety rather than looks. The Food Standards Agency is plain about keeping them refrigerated, which is why a cake from here is collected from a fridge and should go back into one at the other end rather than sitting on a worktop until the party.

Further than most people think, as long as the box is flat. We have measured the drive to every town we deliver to, and the longest of them is twenty-nine minutes from the kitchen — a cake makes that journey in a car boot without noticing. What ruins cakes is not distance but cornering, braking and heat, all three of which are worse on a short trip through town than on a longer one on a dual carriageway.

If you are weighing collection against delivery, the arithmetic is simple: collection is free and costs you the drive both ways, delivery starts at £30 and costs you nothing but the wait. The town pages list the drive each way, so you can price your own time.

In pieces, and ideally not by you. Tiers travel separately — each on its own board, each in its own box — and are stacked at the other end, because a stacked cake in a moving car is a lever with a heavy weight on the end of it. That is why a tiered cake from here is delivered and set up at the venue rather than handed over in one piece.

If you must move one yourself, take the tiers apart, keep them flat and level, and allow time at the other end: stacking is not a job to do while guests arrive.

It depends who was driving, and the answer is not a dodge. If we deliver, the cake is our risk until it is in your hands — that is the law rather than our policy, and there is nothing we could write to change it. Tell us on the day and we will sort it out.

If you collect, the cake is yours from the moment it leaves the kitchen, which is why the box is closed and taped and why nobody should open it to admire the thing before getting home. We will always tell you how a particular cake wants to be carried, and for an awkward one we will say plainly that it is a delivery rather than a collection.