Hi All!
I was just asked to do a really big cake for a school that is closing. It has to feed 200 students. The principal wants school colours and years open as well as the school name on the cake. I'm struggling trying to figure out what type of cake to do...should I do sheets or a tiered? Also how much should I charge. I will just be doing straight buttercream...no fondant. Any suggestions on type of cake(s) and cost? This is one of my biggest orders...and most important as it is for my son's school.
Thanks for your help!!!

I did a cake for my daughter's preschool's Teacher Appreciation Week that was a big hit with the teachers. I didn't charge, but here it is:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1211284

I always think that a tiered cake is much more fun to decorate than sheets. You can incorporate the school's mascot, colors, and a message. Have fun and be sure to post a pic so we can all see what you decided to do!

I would go with a square tiered cake in 6/8/10/12 and an 8" square kitchen cake.

This would give you 172 + 32 = 204 servings (according to Wilton's chart)

I may be overdoing it here but could you do the school? Like make the actual school? You could always put the mascot and school colors on a flagpole for in front. You could also put the school name and the years right over the front door. This may be over shooting by a long shot but hey it's an idea! Let us know how it turns out!

I would go for a two layer full sheet cake ( 18 X 24) for ease of cutting. The problem would be the weight of the cake, and if there was someone to help carry it, to the school. I would see if I could get a picture of the school, get an edible image made, that I would put in the center of the cake, with a frame around it, I would write the year the school opened and closed, something like 1940-2009. Under the frame, the school name above the frame, unless the school colors are something really difficult to work with, I would frost it in one of the colors and write on it in the other. If that would not work out I would frost in white, and use the school colors for accents. Depending on how busy you wanted to make it, you could make small pencils, books, crayons, etc. to scatter around the cake, 18 x 24 inches is a lot of cake to cover.

Personally, I would make a tiered cake. I'm not really a fan of sheet cakes because I tend to want some height and dimension on my cakes.

I would suggest to use some type of kid friendly cakes if the students are really young. Maybe an Oreo cake? How old are the students anyway? I would definitely avoid any cakes containing peanuts and nuts just to make sure that no one gets any allergic reaction.

How sad that a school is closing!! I would do a sheet cake, it is much easier to cut, especially for something like that. A 1-layer 12x18 will serve 72. You could put 3 12x18s side by side if you wanted, or make 3 separate cakes and that would be 216.

I made 4 12x18 layers, stacking them in a 2-layer and putting them side by side before for a high school graduation. It was hard to stack that size layer, if you ask me, and I don't recommend trying to do it by yourself. That would give you more servings though, but I'm sure you will have teachers also. I'd rather have too much than not enough!! lol

Maybe just have a simple border around the bottom and top of the cake in the school colors and maybe a pretty flower/roses arrangement on it. You could put the name of the school on it and write the years under it and maybe write something like xx years of education. As for what to charge? Well, since it is for your son's school, I probably wouldn't charge near what everyone here would. I would charge at least the cost of the ingrediants, plus some for my time. But that's just me.

I love tiered cakes, but as a retired teacher, I am thinking of cutting and serving cake to 200 hungry students...a sheet cake would be much easier to handle in that situation.

I agree that a tiered cake would be much prettier, but I don't think it would be that practical for that occasion.

I agree with poohsmomma. It's much simpler to cut a sheet cake for all those students. They'll be excited enough after seeing your beautiful cake, they'll want to dig into it as quickly as possible.