Figuring Out Tier Sizes.

Decorating By azeboi2005 Updated 18 Jun 2012 , 11:11pm by CWR41

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azeboi2005 Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 5:25pm
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I'm trying to figure out what tier sizes to do for 2 different cakes. I've searched and found various figures for how many slices come out of each tier size and get different amounts for the same size tier from all my reasearch. Can someone please help?
I need help with figuring tier sizes for a cake for 200 and another for 250. These are the 2 biggest cakes I've gone so I'm not so familiar with what pans to use for round tiers.

Thank you in advance!
Chris

6 replies
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evie114 Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 6:10pm
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If you Google "Earlene's cake chart" you will find the answer to your question. She has a chart where she has computed all of the "math" issues involved with doing a wedding cake; it is quite helpful! Good luck!

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carmijok Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 6:32pm
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kakeladi Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 9:13pm
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Basically most of us have agreeded that Wilton's Wedding sized serving chart is the one that is considered "The Industry Standard". The slice size is 1"x2"x4". This fits nicely on most venue plates and is about as much cakes as a standard cupcake.

Earlene cuts her cakes in larger pieces and discards many end pieces because they are not perfectly sized icon_sad.gif This means you have to charge more per slice or loose money.
You'd do best sticking the Wilton's really.

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BakingIrene Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 9:30pm
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Please find out whether there will be another dessert served to understand how big your cake pieces should be.

If the wedding cake is the only sweet food, then calculate for the bigger pieces and charge accordingly--bearing in mind that people do expect a certain total amount of sweet food to be served. If the hosts are not paying for separate dessert then they need to pay for more cake to be good hosts of their parties.

In my own experience, most people understand how to cut up a square/rectangular cake into even sized servings, and when you tell them which pattern to cut, they get the job done (observations from many church teas...) But cutting round/oval/petal cakes into the Wilton wedding size of 8 cubic inches per slice is tricky, because the pieces are wedge shaped and don't all look the same size on the plate. I personally sell those shapes of tiers at 10-11 cubic inches per serving to be able to cut enough.

If you can't handle bigger pans (oven/delivery/site technical reasons), then make two extra cakes the same size as the base tier, to be displayed on the same table and decorated the same way. If you want bigger pans, please consider the half-round pans for 16" and larger. They bake better.

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azeboi2005 Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 9:38pm
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Thank you all, I think I've got my tier sizes! Yeah I didn't like Earlene's chart as much seeing how the cake slice is quite big and there's a big difference is serving sizes.

Chris

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CWR41 Posted 18 Jun 2012 , 11:11pm
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