Transporting Your Holiday Goodies

Coming together over delicious food and sharing homemade treats are part of what makes the holiday season wonderful. After working hard to create delectable dishes, you’ll want to make sure everything arrives at its destination intact and ready to delight the recipients. Follow these tips for transporting your holiday goodies safely.

Hot Dishes

Bringing a side dish to a holiday meal? Check with your host ahead of time. If your food requires storage space in the refrigerator or if you need to reheat your dish in the oven, let them know in advance so they can either save room for you or you can make alternate plans if space is at a premium. Avoid taking a dish that will require a lot of assembly or cooking when you get to the dinner party; you don’t want to interfere with your host’s carefully planned flow of meal prep. To transport a hot dish, cover it well – a layer of aluminum foil underneath a fitted cover provides extra insurance. Wrap it in a large towel for even more insulation.

Remember Your Slow Cooker

These can be incredibly helpful for holiday side dishes. For some recipes, they provide an excellent alternative to taking up space in the oven or the stovetop; after preparing a dish such as mashed potatoes, put them in a slow cooker to transport. Cover the top with foil before placing the lid on for extra security. When you arrive, plug it in and set it on warm until the meal is ready.

Don’t Let it Slide

Whatever you’re taking, from cakes to casseroles, make sure it’s secure in the vehicle. No matter how carefully you plan to drive, you never know when you’ll have to brake hard or swerve to avoid something in the road. Place your dishes in a box or cooler underneath a layer of skid-proof shelf liner, then use rolled-up kitchen towels to serve as bumpers holding everything into place. Keep the box itself from sliding around in your vehicle by surrounding it with other boxes or towels. Containers holding food should go on the floor of the car or in the trunk; placing it on the seat where it can fall after a hard brake is flirting with disaster.

Pies and Cakes

If you have worked away in the kitchen to create a dazzling pie or cake, you’ll want to take extra care to make sure it arrives at its destination in all its glory. One trick to protect the cream topping or frosting on your dessert: insert uncooked spaghetti noodles into the cake or pie, then cover loosely with plastic wrap. Spaghetti is a better choice for the job than toothpicks, which can slide down and disappear into the dessert.

Cookies

If you’re bringing a cookie platter to a holiday get together, be prepared for some shifting in transport. When you arrive, you will probably have minimal re-arranging to do before putting the plate out for guests. If you are packing cookies to give away as gifts, craft stores have a wide variety of food boxes that are practical and attractive, too – take-out boxes, folding cardboard gable boxes, cylindrical boxes, even glass mason jars tied with ribbon can all work to transport goodies with a cute presentation safely.

Shipping Baked Goods

Success starts with choosing the right recipes. Select cookies or bar-type treats such as brownies that will survive the inevitable jostling of being sent through the mail. Avoid cookies that are delicate, crumbly or have soft, easily smudged icing and opt for sturdier, firmer varieties. Begin by wrapping cooled cookies individually to keep them fresh, then pack into small containers, such as festive tins. Alternate layers of cookies with layers of bubble wrap inside the tin, beginning and ending with the wrap so cookies are not able to shift around. Once the tin is packed, place it inside a box packed with packing foam peanuts or crumpled newspaper to provide cushioning and protection, with ideally three inches of packing material on all sides of the cookie tin. Tape it up securely to ship.

Whatever treats you’re sharing this season, may they thrill your loved ones and be thoroughly enjoyed. Happy holidays!

You may also like 6 Appliances That Will Make Your Holiday Cooking Easier. For more of Diane’s etiquette tips, read her posts on Inc., subscribe to her articles on Huff Post, “like” The Protocol School of Texas on Facebook, and follow her on Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter. Buy her new book, Modern Etiquette for a Better Life.