petaluma1

One can't bring the following on a flight:

a stick of butter, 4 oz. (8 tablespoons)
a can of condensed milk, 14 oz.
a brick of cream cheese, 8 oz
1/4 c. lemon juice

BUT

if you combine all the above into a no-bake cheesecake, which will contain

11 tablespoons of butter
28 oz. of condensed milk
16 oz. of cream cheese
4 oz. of lemon juice

you can bring it on board.

What's the sense in that? (purely rhetorical question)

It's a terrorist's dream come true as there are lots of no-bake cakes and pies that the TSA will allow you to bring on a plane.

spd476

I'm convinced the TSA liquid rules were randomly developed. The TSA was getting pressured by the airlines to allow liquids because they couldn't handle the amount of checked bags. So they came up with the ziplock bag. That wasn't enough security theater for them so they said the containers had to be travel sized. Someone at the TSA guessed the travel size bottles were about 3 oz. so they went with that size.

I have no idea how they came up with allowing pies. Has anybody ever got through security with a pie before? I figure the odds on getting a screener who knows pies are allowed is really low.

petaluma1

I look at the pie/cake thing the same way I look at knitting needles: TSA knew it would not be received well by certain segments of the population if they banned knitting needles even though, in the right hands, a knitting needle could easily kill someone.

There would be riots if people were not allowed to bring pies/cakes on the plane, especially when one is headed to a family gathering at holiday time.

In each case, they took the easy way out and allowed the items rather than face the wrath of part of the flying public.

Same thing with allowing the young and old to keep their shoes on. TSA didn't realize the depth of anger at making the old and young take off shoes and finally corrected when the uproar became too much.

chollie

I have a feeling you might be much less successful getting a pie or cake through outside holiday dates.

Too much frosting? TSO's gonna eat it.

Too much meringue on your lemon meringue pie? TSO's gonna eat it.

Too much liquid between the cherries or peaches in your pie? Guess who's eat it?

Don't forget, there was a bit of awkwardness a while back when someone (TSA) had the bright idea to take all the confiscated holiday pies and serve them up at the USO (?) facilities for military at the airports.

Because even though they couldn't be allowed on airplanes because there was allegedly no way to verify their safety, they were safe enough to hand off to the men and women of the US military.

I think even Blogdad Bob had to pass on trying to explain that one.

petaluma1

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/pract...carry-pie.html

@AskTSA has been telling people they can bring pies and cakes through checkpoints, but told one person today she could not bring her cream cheese through if it was more than 3.4 oz. That's what prompted me to start this thread.

chollie

That link is a bit dated now. Since then, we've discovered that 'screener discretion' applies to cupcakes, specifically, the amount of frosting on the cupcake.

Now I've frosted a cake or two in my time. Unless you're doing something unusual, there's more frosting on a two layer cake than on the most over-loaded single cupcake. So....which one will be allowed when?

Actually, she could have brought the cream cheese through if she had cut it in 3.4 ounce pieces and put the individual pieces in her neutralizing kippie bag.

Well, no, then the screener would probably have exercised his 'discretion' to declare that he had no way to verify that each of the unlabelled bite-size bits of cream cheese were less than 3.4 ounces.

Boggie Dog

Ok, call me naieve but just where does a person store a pie in one of today's busy and cramped airplane cabins? People are smushing things in the overhead bins with their oversized bags trying to avoid checked baggage fees.

And Chollie already alluded to TSA's Great Catch of the Cupcake in a Jar a couple of years ago that was too dangerous to fly.

chollie

Under the seat. I have had a seatmate who held a cake in a cakebox through the entire flight.

I wouldn't want to do it on a connecting flight, though.

Boggie Dog

I wouldn't put a food item on the deck even with it sealed in a box. Airplane decks are filthy.

:D!

You can't un-combine the cake into its ingredients...

Aventine

Box in a freezer bag. Can usually stow it away in the overhead compartment or front storage space.

petaluma1

Granted, the link I supplied was dated. The following is from Bob's Thanksgiving 2015 post:

While the stated issue with the cupcake in question was indeed frosting, the real issue was that it was in a jar which contained far more than 3.4 oz. Had the same cupcake been carried through the checkpoint like a regular cupcake, it would have been allowed.

http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/01/cupcakegate.html

Boggie Dog

So it wasn't the cupcake that was deemed to dangerous to fly but the jar.

How cunning TSA!

chollie

The closing words in Blogdad Bob's post say it all:

Because, as always, the rules on the website and postings in the blogs are guidelines, not rules that are necessarily followed at the airport.

If you fly often enough, YMWV.

petaluma1

That's Bob's version of the TSA "hold harmless" statement which he is required to work into each post.

If cakes and pies were being confiscated, we would know about it.

Again, I believe there are certain segments of the flying population that the TSA has no desire to deal with and I think pie/cake carriers are a portion of that population.