Did TSA Swipe a Slice of Passenger's Chocolate Cake?

First it was a report that the Transportation Security Administration confiscated a Massachusetts woman's cupcake.

Now, a Florida man is claiming the TSA helped themselves to a chunk of the chocolate cake in his suitcase.

Joe Maltese was visiting relatives in New York earlier this month. Before he flew back, his mother-in-law packed a store-bought chocolate cake into his suitcase.

"I didn't even know the cake was in there until I got home,"  Maltese told the Palm Beach Post.

But what most stood out when he unpacked the treat was that a third of it was missing.

"It was a clean cut," he told the newspaper. "And my wife asked me, 'Did you already have a piece of the cake?'"

He hadn't, and just figured his mother-in-law must have sent only part of a cake -- only when his wife called her mother, she said she hadn't cut it at all before putting it into the suitcase.

There had been a TSA "Notice of Bag Inspection" form in his suitcase to inform him that his suitcase had been checked before his flight back, which led Maltese to wonder.

"Are times that tough where TSA inspectors have to eat travelers' food?" he asked. "Or did the inspector conduct a taste test to make certain it wasn't contraband or a bomb?"

The TSA allows passengers to bring cakes and pies through its security checkpoint, though cautions they might be subject to additional screening. When the Post asked the TSA what could have happened to Maltese's cake, the agency said it would examine the video recording from the screening areas.

"We reviewed the videotape for the entire period of time that the passenger's bag would have gone through the screening process. At no time did we see anything resembling a cake removed from any suitcase," a TSA representative wrote in an email. "There was a suitcase with boxes, and those boxes were not opened. I can't guarantee that was the passenger's cake, but I want to stress that nobody opened a box with a cake or anything resembling a cake."

Still, Maltese isn't convinced.

"I swear there was a piece missing from that cake," he said.