Flying With Cookies Or Preserves? TSA Offers Holiday Travel Tips

PENNSYLVANIA — Here's some food for thought: If you're flying with food this holiday season, be aware that not every edible will successfully pass through an airport security checkpoint.

If it's a solid item such as cookies, cake, browines or some other baked good, your treats can go in your carry-on baggage. But the Transportation Security Administration is reminding those who travel that if it can be spilled, spread, sprayed, pumped or poured - and it's larger than 3.4 ounces - it must go in a checked bag. That would include items such as preserves, jams, jellies eggnog and syrup.

Amy Hatfield, an assistant federal security director at Pittsburgh International Airport, offered her recommendation for transporting cookies that works in carry-on or checked bag: a Pringle's potato chips tube.

“Stack your cookies and wrap the stack with plastic wrap," Hatfield said in a TSA release. "Then slide the stack of cookies into an empty Pringles can.”

The TSA even has a cookie recipe travelers can use before they make that trip to the airport. Ciaran Persch, a TSA officer at Harrisburg International Airport shared this recipe for white chocolate chip ube cookies:

Ingredients:3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp cornstarch
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
15 oz ube jam (Also called ube halaya, which you can find at most Asian grocery stores)
1 large egg at room temperature
1 large egg yolk at room temperature
2 tbsp ube extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
Recipe:
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk all-purpose flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Beat unsalted butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium-high speed until well-blended. Add ube jam, extract to the mixture and continue beating until incorporated. Add eggs and beat until combined.

Add flour mixture to ube mixture in thirds and beat until no more streaks of flour remain. Scrape the bottom of the bowl as you go. Stir in the white chocolate chips. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the batter for at least three hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop roughly two tablespoons of the dough and roll into balls. Place the balls onto the cookie sheet with about two inches of space around each ball. Bake for 10 to 11 minutes or until the cookies are set. Allow to cool completely.