I'm making my neice's birthday cake and they want a barbie cake (the dress with the barbie sticking out at the top) as well as FOUR 6" cakes. They live 2 hours away. I don't see how I could assemble everything there, it would take too long. I'll have to have all the cakes finished beforehand. I'm afraid the icing will melt. Any ideas? I'll frost the cakes when they're frozen and will keep them refrigerated until we leave but I'm afraid they will shift too much and the icing will start to melt (esp the barbie cake). Any suggestions? Also I am unsure how to transport the barbie cake. eeek!

Well I live in Alabama..it's 100 here today. So I always use buttercream that can take the heat. My buttercream is all veg. shortening...no butter. I always make sure the car is really cool ..I will turn the car on and let the air run for at least 10 min.

I use all shortening bc, frost the cake, flash freeze for 2 hours, then transport in a very cool car with tinted windows. No problems and the temp here has been 95 + all summer.

Get it really cold, freezer, fridge, whichever. Then put it in a box if you can't find a ice cooler big enough. Add icepacks in the box, but don't let them touch the cake. Sometimes a styrofoam cooler turned upside down works, just make sure it is secure. I also put those Ice pack sheets (the ones with the little square pillows) under the cake with a towel in between. Blast the A/C, if it's 100 or under you should be ok.

You can also add shortening to your buttercream in place of butter, that will give you around a 10 degree bump. Butter begins to melt at 74? something degrees.

i saw a melted barbie cake earlier this summer and would hate to see that again! can you pack some dry ice in a cooler with the cakes? you'll have to make sure your car is getting fresh air from outside.

http://www.dryiceinfo.com/camping.htm

you can get a big styrofoam cooler from walmart for ~$10

I drove a four tier unassembled wedding cake five hours for my son's wedding from SC to VA Beach. This was fourth of July week a few years ago. It had all shortening buttercream. If we stopped, one of us stayed in the car with the air condition wide open. I told my husband and younger son to bring a coat or blanket because we were not cutting the air conditioning down. I found some great stackable plastic boxes with a groove in the top and stacked them on top of each other. We had our clothes packed our wedding clothes over top of them for insulation. When we arrived to drop the cake off, they looked just the same as they did when we put them in the car. I do not refrigerate these cakes at all so they were not sweating or the least bit shiny.

I agree, as long as your buttercream isn't an all butter recipe, it isn't that fragile with the a/c on.

I made a two-tier cake for a family funeral last week. I knew both tiers would be too much cake, but made it anyway so the family members would have leftovers. The tier and a half that wasn't served was placed in the back of an SUV, driven 45 minutes to the burial site, left in the sun 10-20 minutes without a/c during the ceremony, driven another 45 minutes to a restaurant, AND left in the SUV for another two hours during our lunch. I was surprised to hear that NONE of it melted and that it tasted just as good as it did that morning!!! Unbelievable!

So many excellent suggestions! I would add: try to keep the cakes out of direct sunlight. Even with the AC on, it will be warmer in the spots that are in the sun!

I just drove a cake 8 hrs (90 some degrees outside!) for my Mom's birthday and kept it in a cooler with ice packs. It worked great. It was buttercream covered with fondant. Good luck!