I am baking my grandmothers 80th birthday cake, her party is in La and I am in Tn. We are leaving to go down Wed and her party is Sat. My aunt says there will be about 70 ppl at this party. I want to bake and freeze the cakes before we leave mainly because I will not have any of my equipment w/ me and I don't know how her oven bakes. I have a few questions:
1) What is the best way to transport frozen cake for a 10+ hr drive, we will be going at night.
2) She wants to have 2 12x18 cakes side by side plus about 4 dzn cupcakes, she is worried a stacked 12x18 will not be enough.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!!!!

Is your family one that loves cake because2 of the 12x18 cakes is enough to feed about 100 people. (If you do it stacked you just cut it a 1 in width instead of 2), plus 4 dz cupcakes. Whew it sounds like you will be feeding an army

I just have one question for clarification or maybe I misread but are you taking them decorated? Oops maybe 2, what kinda of car are you driving?

No they will not be decorated, just baked, I will decorate before the party. I have tried to explain how many serving a stacked 12 x 18 will make but my aunt explained that ppl down there want a "piece" of cake not a sliver.

.............2) She wants to have 2 12x18 cakes side by side plus about 4 dzn cupcakes, she is worried a stacked 12x18 will not be enough.............

hehe - another case of 'cake muggles' who don't understand. Placing them side by side vs stacking the *same two cakes* will make NO difference in the # of servings yielded It's just that the piece will *look* different - it's EXACTLY THE SAME amount of cake!

......1) What is the best way to transport frozen cake for a 10+ hr drive, ............
Freeze several large ziploc bags of water. Place them around the cake box. Will you be able to box the cake being that big (assuming you got w/the side-by-side arrangement)? Maybe you can get a box (any box- not only a cake box) just bigger than the board, then you could put some of those fzn bags under the cake. Don't know what your weather is like - how hot it will be If you can find a big enough box put the cake box wrapped in a large plastic/garbarage bag in it w/the ice around &/or under it.

Thanks kakeladi, I thought about using the pans as a "box" and wrapping them in several garbage bags and using ice in other garbage bags all around it to keep it frozen.

Have you thought about packaging them with dry ice? Wrap your cakes well first off. Then google how to pack food with dry ice, you should be able to find something good on there. If I am not mistaken, dry ice should last longer and is used to ship cold items through package carriers...just a thought!