Hello All!
This is my first forum so I thank you all in advance for the help! I have been approached to do cake for 600 kids, teachers and parents for a 5th grade graduation. My idea was to do a custom cake and then do sheet cakes for bulk of the serving. What size sheet cakes and how many should I make? If they end up wanting cupcakes how many would you make? Thank you again!
A.Raisig

Are you doing single layer sheet cakes (ie 2" high)? If so, then guessing that they'll likely cut it in a 2"x2" size piece, you would need probably 8 14x22" cakes which is 77 pieces each. That's a lot of cake. If they wanted cupcakes, you'd obviously do 600 but how many extra's I'm not sure.

I wouldn't be able to move my arms if I had to decorate 600 cupcakes at one time! LOL!

My arms would fall off, but I know people do it, at bakeries. Pink Cake Box girl says that she's done 800+ per day!

That sounds like a lot to do with just sheet cakes. I have done larger orders using cupcakes or maybe one decorated cake and the rest cupcakes. Plus with cupcakes it is a lot easier to serve, no waiting etc. and cupcakes are much more kid friendly.

I think you need to ask the school which they'd prefer. Maybe they have the PTA doing the cutting and serving and they'd rather do it that way so they limit the amount of extra they need around. If they'd prefer cupcakes, then they should be able to tell you if they want 1 per person and maybe 10% more just in case. But if you're not doing the serving, then I'd think the decision of sheet cakes vs cupcakes should be left up to the client. And if you do a custom cake, are they cutting it? And will the kids fight over a piece vs a cupcake? Just present the options and pricing to the client and find out what they'd prefer. Remember, it's all going to take you time and you need someplace to store them all and transport them too.

how large of a custom cake are yout hinking of making? That will determine how many sheet cakes you make.

a 12x18 (the largest size my oven willhold) will serve 54 if it's 2" high. If you double the layers so it's 4" high it will serve 108. I like to to the 4" tall cake b/c it's fewer cakes to decorate and carry, but you still get plenty of servings. If you did only these and 4" high then 6 would be enough. But if you're going to serve your custom cake (i'm assuming you mean a tiered cake when you say custom) then you'll need fewer additional cakes.

Do you have a full bakery? Can you handle an order this big on top of a custom cake?

Honestly, I think a custom cake would be wasted on this type of occasion. I work in a secondary school and every year we do an 8th grade and a high school graduation and no one cares about the cake. In order to serve that many people in a timely manner, the cakes will need to be cut during the ceremony so no one would see the custom cake anyway. Also, and again, this is from experience, most people can't wait to leave graduations and don't even stay long enough to have the cake and juice . It kills me but at our school we buy grocery store sheet cakes for our graduations because it's just not worth the work or expense to do anything else.

I just iced and filled 108 cupcakes earlier this week. It took me 2 hours, including adding toppers (I had made those and baked the cupcakes the day before) and boxing everything up. At least half of that time was filling the cupcakes. Icing swirls are quick, I just placed the un iced cupcakes in the box, then filled them and added the swirls. I would definitely prefer to do cupcakes over a custom cake and sheet cakes for 600.