Hi everyone.. I am one of these people that use the party size scale when I plan my cakes. I am always worried that the client won't have enough and think that they got ripped off.

I have a birthday cake for a 2 yr old due on friday night. some of you might have seen the post for the gel bubbles I am having problems with. Now I am getting ready to bake tomorow and I am trying to decide do I bake an 8" & 12"
which will give quite a few party servings, or think smaller and bake a 6 or 7in
cake and a 10" bottom cake. There are expected to be 25-30 guests and I don't know if there are going to be mostly kids or adults with this being a childs party.

So the question of the night is... 8x12 or 7x10? ( i like the look of 7" instead of the little 6" cakes.. I think now that I am looking at this.. 10x7??

I just feel better with an opinion.

If you're talking 2 layer cakes .....

A 10" serves 38 wedding servings, so I know it will EASILY serve 25-30. If you educate them on NOT cutting the cakes into wedges, they will have more than plenty with the 7-10.

What do you charge for your servings? How many servings are they paying for? That's what determines the size of the cake for me.

I also use the party servings from Wilton for all of my cakes--12 cubic inches of cake vs. 8 for the wedding size.

For a 2 tier, 25 servings, they'd get an 8+4
30 servings, they'd get an 8+6
They're not perfect, but they come as close as I feel is fair to myself, my pricing, & the client.

A 10+7 serves 44. Are they paying for 44 servings? If so, then that's what you give them. If they're paying for 25, why should you give them almost 2X or 3x (an 8+12 serves 60) as much cake as they paid for???

Rae

I know I too use the wilton size guides 56 for a 12 Inch 39 for a 10 inch and 25 for an 8 inch for my wedding cakes.. but I feel that when someone is getting a party cake that people are not going to be serving it sometimes that it is sometimes a free for all If you look in the older wilton wedding albums they have wedding cake servingd almost the same as today and then a seperate party cake cutting guide that is almost double the size pieces. I think everyone uses the wilton guide.. I have even left cutting directions when I deliver the cake.

I always tell the client how many it will serve and how to cut slices instead of wedges or hunks. I had a catering company start to cut one of my cakes at a wedding that I was also attending and had I not stopped them and taken over
(brides mom ask me to check it out).. there would have only been about half the number of servings that they needed. hunks that is what they were cutting. guess they wanted to get out of there or something.

This cake is an auction cake. I have a friend who is trying to adopt a down syndrome child from some country (don't remember where) and it is costing them about 35 thousand They have such a good heart they already have a 4 yr old down syndrome little girl but they went somewhere and saw this child and came home and knew they had to adopt her. So they will have two 4 yr old down syndrme little gitrls. They had all family and friends involved either donating something (like a cake) or some hand crafted item like from etsy website and then people bid on the items . this lady purchased this cake.I am not even sure what the auction ad said. All I know it is a 30 serving 2 tier birthday cake that she picked out. I guess i just needed my smaller size cake thoughts validated. [/list]

For a two-year-old's birthday, typically the kid's mom will cut and serve the cake, so I don't think you need to worry about a free-for-all! Especially with a tiered cake -- unlike a simple rectangular sheet cake, most people just have no idea how to approach cutting tiers so they wait for the host to get it started.

At young children's birthdays usually there are about equal numbers of children and adults, although it can be more adults if it's an extended family party rather than preschool/daycare/mommy-group friends. But I'm not sure what difference it makes unless a lot of the guests are infants too young to be served a piece of cake. FWIW, for kids' parties I've found it works well enough to figure half of the servings shown on the Wilton wedding chart for a given size pan. That allows for cutting generous pieces, and as I'm a hobby baker doing this for my own family and friends, pricing isn't an issue.

Holly