Exchanging lovingly baked sweet treats between family and friends is a wonderful way to practice “sharing is caring.” But, with loved ones spread across different parts of the country, sending these lovely edibles becomes challenging. You don’t want them to open a box full of cookie crumbs or a stale fruit cake.
If you’re a bakery owner or someone planning to show love with some pastries, here are a few tried and true methods for packing and shipping your brownies, cookies, cakes, and more to ensure they arrive in perfect condition.
How Do I Ship My Baked Goods?
The best way to package baked goods depends on the type of treat you’re sending. If you’re shipping other items, it is vital to learn How to Ship Boxes from my previous post.
Whatever the case, you must keep them safe inside their shipping container.
Choose the Type of Baked Goods to Ship
Receiving a crumbled pastry mess in the mail may be the worst feeling in the world. We’ve put together some pastry shipping tips to help you maintain the look and taste of your baked treat.
- Cake and Bread
For people who love their pastries to have a little added weight, unfrosted loaf cakes, pound cakes, and loaf breads all travel nicely if properly packed and have a shipping timeframe of three days or fewer.
Soak your treats in bourbon or another strong spirit if it will take longer. It’s a great (and socially acceptable) way to keep a cake’s flavor while it’s shipped.
The most difficult sort of bread to ship is yeast-leavened bread, which has the lowest storage life and is the most finicky. It is also advisable to avoid shipping buttercream cakes unless you’re packing them in a cooling bag. Bodaon Store offers good quality cooling bags on Amazon.
- Cookies
If you’re giving a cookie monster a present, think meringues, spritz cookies, biscotti, or gingersnaps, which are baked till dry. On the other hand, nuts should be avoided since their inherent fats make them stale too fast.
Fragile cookies, such as tuiles, lace biscuits, and brandy snaps, are practically certain to be damaged in transit. You might also encounter difficulties with brittle cookies at the edges and moist in the middle, such as oatmeal, chocolate chip, or any homemade cream cookies. These varieties of cookies may have lost their sweetness by arriving at their destination.
- Brownies and Bar Cookies
Bar cookies such as brownies or solid and creamy brownies from corner to corner are ideal for shipping. To reduce the risk of damage, choose unfrosted bars over frosted bars.
- Jams and Sauces
Fruit jams, salsas, marinaras, and preserves are some of the jams and sauces that can be preserved for up to a year if you process them properly and keep them unopened in a pressure cooker or canner, according to Geary. Just make sure that glass jars are well-padded.
How Do You Package Baked Goods for Shipping
Now that you have picked the type of baked goods to ship, you need to know how to package them for delivery properly. Although the specifications for each item will differ, the method will be identical.
When it comes to delivering baked goods, knowing a few simple strategies can help. You need to have these items handy before you start packing.
Packing Materials
- Inside packing box—preferably a tin box for cookies and candies, or a sturdy cardboard box
- An airtight bag and plastic wrap for bread and unfrosted cakes.
- Tape
- Cool packs for frozen cakes
- Bubble wrap and packing peanuts for insulation
- Butter paper, tissue paper, or wax paper
- A larger corrugated cardboard box
How to Package Cake for Shipping
- Cover the bottoms of the inside boxes with butter paper. Or use special cake boxes that come with fitted styrofoam. Polar Tech offers special boxes on Amazon.
- Place the cake in the box and keep it cool by placing frozen cool packs around it.
- Decorate the box with a ribbon tie or bow to the container.
- Create a cushion at the bottom of the box using packing peanuts or
- Put the “inside box” in a slightly larger box that has little space on the sides.
- Fill all the space around the smaller box with packing peanuts and bubble wrap until the box is immobile.
- Seal the lid of the box by tapping all the seams tightly.
- Print out shipping labels and attach them to the top and side of the box. Don’t forget to indicate which part is the top as it will prevent the transporter from flipping your cake upside down.
How to package a cake for shipping
- Wrap the cookies properly. To avoid flavor diffusion when mailing various kinds of cookies in one package, wrap each cookie separately in a sealed bag. If you’re mailing cookies of the same flavor, stack them together and cover them loosely in plastic wrap.
- Place the cookies in the box and double butter paper or any alternative over the cookies and cover the container.
- Place the “inner box” in a larger box with minimal side space.
- Fill the gap around the inner box with packing peanuts and bubble wrap until it is completely immovable.
- Shake the box gently to help ensure the cookies aren’t moving about before mailing. Be generous with packing materials. Add more padding if the inner box is moving. Wasting packing supplies to protect the cookies is better than your cookies arriving in crumbs.
- Tape all of the seams on the box’s lid to secure it.
- Print out shipping labels and attach them to the top and side of the box. Don’t forget to indicate which part is the top as it will prevent the transporter from flipping your cake upside down.
- Important Tip: Smaller cookies crumble less easily than larger cookies. To create cookies for shipment orders, use a teaspoon rather than a 2″ cookie scoop.
How Much Does it Cost to Ship Baked Goods?
The package’s weight, and dimensions will determine the cost of shipping your baked goods, and distance traveled. To save money and get your baked products to their destination quickly, you’ll need a speedy and economical option for shipping baked goods.
Thankfully, many domestic and international courier firms provide appropriate services for transporting baked goods shipments. You can call your courier to get a quote or use the online calculator on their website to estimate the cost of shipping your package.
Here’s a breakdown of some affordable options for shipping your baked goods. The prices here are based on the cost of shipping a 2 lb box of cookies with 10″ by 5 by 5 dimensions transported from Brooklyn, New York, to Miami, Florida.
USPS
The United States Postal Service offers the best pricing for small, lightweight goods and usually delivers them quickly. Suitable options from USPS include:
- USPS Retail Ground 2-8-days $11.60
- USPS Priority Mail 3-Day $11.75
- USPS Priority Mail Express 1-Day $46.20
FedEx
FedEx offers special services for sending frozen foods and enterprises. Here’s a rundown of their prices:
- FedEx Ground $11.90
- FedEx Express Saver $24.18
- FedEx 2Day AM $37.68
- FedEx Standard Overnight $72.44
- FedEx First Overnight $108.46
UPS
UPS offers the best rate for large and/or heavy packages. UPS is also perfect for perishable deliveries due to its quick dispatch timeframes. Here are some of the suitable options for baked goods:
- UPS Ground $26.50
- UPS 2nd Day Air $39.50
Bonus Tip:
- Baked goods can only be shipped from one person to another in the United States and must be listed as a gift on the customs form.
- When mailing cookies, for example, a slice of white bread will absorb any moisture and help keep the cookies fresh.
