Have been baking some teddy bear cakes for family - but am starting to learn about cake pricing and I see that many of you price cakes by the serving. I can understand that for uniform shapes like rounds, squares, etc, but how do you determine number of servings for a stand up cake? Or do you just not bother, price it as a full cake only, and tell customers what your estimate is (knowing that it is not likely these kinds of cakes would be ordered for big gatherings).

I have a Nordic Ware bear pan - takes 12-14 cups of batter, and about 4 hours to assemble and decorate with fondant and demarara sugar fur. When I made it for a luncheon at Christmas, I easily fed 15-17 staff people on just one half after lunch - but we just hacked at it. Not sure what I would advise someone actually buying it. Any advice??

Well, if you are using a pan for the cake (as opposed to free form carving) you can fill it all the way up with water to get the volume of the final cake then divide by your standard serving size. Party cake servings are generally 12 cubic inches.

I go by 1/4c batter for a wedding serving, and 1/3 cup batter for party servings to get a rough guide. So your pan will serve approx 36-48 going by 12 cups of batter.

Thanks for the suggestions - appreciate both ideas.

Mike, your estimate matches pretty well with my experience in serving this cake @ home. Since I got 15-17 pieces out of half, then the whole would be 30-34 and cutting a little more precisely certainly would get 36-40.