I'm making my daughter's birthday cake for a family party at grandma & grandpa's house this weekend. They live about a 4 hour drive away. I'd like to use SMBC as the frosting, but I'm not confident that I can keep a decorated two-tier cake very cool for the whole drive--and I don't want it to melt or slide apart. So, I'm considering having the tiers filled and crumb-coated and frozen (to defrost on the drive) and having the SMBC made up, but kept cool in a container in an ice chest. Then doing the final frosting and decorating at grandma's house.

I don't have much experience with SMBC. Do you think this is a viable strategy? Is the SMBC flexible enough (for want of a better word) to withstand some changes in temperature if it isn't on the cake yet? I'd like to do as much prep as I can before I leave home, but I also need to make sure there's an intact cake at the end of the process.

After SMBC has been chilled it takes a lot of mixing to get it back to the right consistency. Would you have time to re-mix it in a stand mixer at your Grandma's house? If the answer is yes I think it could be a viable option.

Would you do the crumb coating in SMBC or another type of buttercream? I would recommend crumb coating with something else to keep the cake stable during the trip. HTH

This past weekend, I drove an SMBC plus fondant cake over 530 miles. I have driven SMBC-only cakes many, many other places, too. Use the SPS system. It's just more stable than dowels. I just purchased a CakeSafe which I love, but before I got that, I would box the cake (stacked with SPS) in a cardboard box with no slip mat at the bottom, put that into a larger cardboard box lined with no slip, and then surround with dry ice, then into the car on another no slip mat. No transport problems. Good luck.

Yep, just get it cold to start with and try to keep it as cool as possible on the ride and you should be fine. I usually travel with mine totally completed. Just make sure you bring a repair kit (as always)