i am looking at Earlenes serving chart.
i have a 12",10",8",6" squares it says a 12" square feeds 60 people how would you cut the cake??? 10 x 6 ???? that doesn't seem right at alll!!!!!

please help me.
thanks

You can go on Wilton's site and print out a serving chart.

I just don't agree with the serv. sizes but that is what everyone uses. I don't know how they cut it. I don't cut cakes, I tried once to follow the chart and had cake everywhere.

Wilton's chart is flawless, IMO. I tend to cut the cake into what some would consider "smaller" sizes.

Take this, for instance; I get 50 servings out of a 9 x 13.

IMHO Wilton's chart is not flawless.
Boy, you must be serving "slivers" if you get 50 servings out of a 9 x 13 cake.

Here is one I like, it has reference links at the bottom to wedding cake sizes I think.

http://www.pastrywiz.com/cakes/servings.htm

I'm telling you don't go to Nglez unless you BYOC, she serves crumbs

Serously, 9 x 13 48 servings, the're kidding, right. a x 13 in my house serves 12.

I've heard on the grapevine that nglez is actually a 15 year old he, not a she, but I don't know that for sure. Maybe nglez can give us the scoop, not that it makes any difference.

Based on a number of statements s/he has made, I agree that nglez is a teenager, but I have no clue about gender. (Doesn't really matter to me, I guess.)

***added info***
Based on the caption for the picture in nglez's gallery, Nick is 15 years old. I've never heard of a girl going by Nick, but it's possible, I suppose. (I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect nglez is an clever "spelling" of Nicholas, not a play on the Spanish word for English.)

***end added info***

If a 9 X 13 is really tall, I believe that it would be possible to cut it into 48 fairly reasonable sized pieces (about 1 1/2 inches on a side), but the pieces would be likely to topple and fall apart during serving, no matter how sharp the knife is.

I'd prefer to err on the side of making pieces that are a bit too big, rather than risk of toppled, falling apart cake pieces. (Maybe my cakes aren't dense enough, or maybe the filling isn't gluey enough.)

I guess the question isn't necessarily one of how small one can manage to cut the cake, but what size one feels comfortable serving.

Everyone has their standards and priorities, and it isn't worth getting all ruffled over it.

RedPanda

If you want your cake to stand upright on its own you have to cut bigger pieces than a 1inx2in. If you are laying the cake down on its side, then you don't have to worry about it toppling over and can serve "silvers".

I think you can 60 pieces from a 12in square. Its 12in x 12in. Cut one side into 6 pieces(2in apart). The other side is done in 10 pieces(slightly bigger than 1in apart). 6 times by 10 is 60 pieces.

Small for my taste, since I make a 6 inch cake solely for myself.

arosstx - that is the same guide I use, it works well for me.

What some people have done is actually marked out how they would cut each cake on the pan, and figured their servings that way. Doing this in Illustrator gave me more servings than the guide linked to, but for figuring pricing it would be good. Remember, these are mainly for 4" tall cakes, not the single layers like sheet cakes. Those are normally 2-3x2x2, whereas wedding slices are 1-1 1/2x2x4. What I see around here is the slices laid down on the plate, instead of standing. This is nice to show the fillings, and can be decorated on the plate with a swirl of sauce on the plate under the slice (raspberry for raspberry filling, etc, brings out the color), just have one person swirl on the plate, then lay the slice down on it, the swirl is the background.

Nglez, the mystery person, fess up

If I come to any of y'all's function I guess I will have to BMOC. It's either do that or I will start statching cake when people aren't looking.

If you saw me you would totally understand. There's sugar running throught these vains.

Janette - these are recommended servings for events, not typical servings for family desserts. For those, an 8" cake serves about 8

RedPanda - RE: added info, I go by Nic (Nichole) but you're right, never seen it Nick for a female. Intresting interpretation on the screenname. I go by Nkhol on another site.

So, Nick, you gonna come clean?

RP

If that 9x13 is two layers tall yes you could get that many slices out of the cake.

As far as figuring servings, i have switched to going with how many recipes i use to make a cake. I use 15-20 servings per mix. It seems to be right on the money for me. But i guess we here aren't large cake eaters. Cause if i make an 8inch round for us at home (3-4inches high) 16 slices is normal for us.

I agree with Veejax, they must be slivers. I allow 24 on a 2x2 on a 9x13, single layer. On a 12 inch 50 to 60. An 8' family cake, 8 pieces. I do cakes for a restaurant and they cut the 8 into 8's. The customers get a nice piece of cake. I guess it depends on what the occassion is, but for a wedding a1x2 or 1 1/2 x 2 is a typical cut. The Wilton chart is a guideline, and although I provide a chart for cutting, people still have a tendancy to cut larger pieces for a wedding. When I make a pan of brownies or lemon bars i use a 9x13 and cut them in 12's.

Well, for square and sheet cakes, it really is a case of mathematics to work out how many servings you are going to get out of a cake - and that's always what I go by (and never had a failure or complaints once - in fact most of my customers have cake left over!)

For example a double layered (4in deep) 12in square cake = 144ins surface area of cake, so:

cut into 1x2x4in slices = 72 servings
cut into 1.5x2x4in slices = 48 servings
cut into 2x2x4in slices = 36 servings

and so on. To me these size pieces, in the context of weddings or formal parties are plenty big enough - I guess those of you in the USA are just used to super-sizing everything (and that isn't necessarily a good thing!)

bonjovibabe - that's how it's done for square, rectangle, etc. Also for rounds, area=pi x r(squared) since I don't have symbols. So, an 8 inch round would be 4(half of times itself, times 3.14, or just over 16x3, so just over 48 inches of surface area. That would give
1x2x4=24
1.5x2x4=16
2x2x4=12
Servings for 8inch cake. BUT it would be good to diagram to see if this is what you can cut based on the shape of servings.

I was diagraming last night accordng to how indideby was demonstrating cutting. Took a 6", 8", etc shapes and put lines every 2 inches, then every one inch (and 1 1/2, and 2) to see how many servings per pan. I MUCH prefer this diagram to the normal circle diagram of cutting in 2 inches, trying to cut a nice circle, then slicing.

So, I think there are many good suggestions and methods here. Remember that a wedding cake slice of 1x2x4 is still 8 one-inch-square bites of cake. But, I've also been known to go back for seconds on cake if it was really good

I put the Wilton chart to the test the other day -- I made a sampler cake for my bible study class which was an 8 x 3 plain cake (just cake and frosting, no decorations.) I used Wilton's guide on how to cut a cake and I got 18 pieces. That's it! I could have squeezed 20 out of it tops. There was no room for two inner circles of cake, just one. So what I had was one inner circle cut into quarters and 14 slices around the outside (could have done 16 slices I suppose.) It was my way of trying to figure out how to cut a round wedding cake. Each piece was about 2 inches long, 1 inch wide.

So, anyone want to put together a "reasonable" guide? I can if no one else volunteers, using suggestions provided.

Do we want inner circles, or only straight cuts?

I think for cakes up to 8in round (possibly even 10in), people automatically cut into wedges, so that's the servings I give for the smaller rounds. The larger rounds and all those pesky shapes (hearts, hexagon), I ended up drawing out the servings on the bottom of the pans, and Wilton were absolutely correct for wedding servings (with little corner bits and odd angles actually leftover) - BUT when quoting servings, I err on the side of caution and deduct 5-15 servings from the Wilton serving guide to allow for more generous cutters. But that's just me!

I like the idea of marking the pans - I have the Wilton page torn out of one of my old books and taped inside my cupboard and I still have to refer to it all the time, I tend to take the average servings from the "party" chart and the "wedding" chart for my number of servings per cake, but I am not always confident in it. It never seems like enough, but then I have cake leftover, so I guess I will have to make a few "test" cakes and cut them myself to see what the deal is.

Anyone want to do a group trial? We could each pick a size, cut it according to Wilton Chart and post our findings with photos?

I actually had to fold a piece of paper the other day to the 1.5x2x2 slice that Wilton recommended so I could get a visual of how large it was and if I thought it would really be big enough!

I have to add size of cake servings to the Pet Peeve post!

Here's a link to a photo that bonjovibabe posted of wilton serving size pieces, maybe it would be a good visual for everyone http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-photos_display_121_-88648.html

So what would we call these, wedding-party-family? Those blocks are very helpful!

Earlene has the straight line cutting guide on her site:

http://www.earlenescakes.com/cakeservinst.htm

I torte so my cakes are on the taller side and I use earlene's cutting guides and tend to use wilton's serving guide(I know-doesn't make sense lol). This system works good for me. I think alot of it is learning what you can reasonably yield from your cakes and then educating the person cutting it!

N is a 15y/o boy if I read some previous posts N made correctly.

Z-I like that-"wedding-party-family"!

I know we are way off the subject in discussing Nglez's age etc, but I have to say, if he is a 15 year old boy, he is well read and intelligent. I am not used to 15 year old boys using proper English. Also... I just assumed nglez was a take on the word 'Angels'... I have to admit, my curiousity is peaked! It would be cool to have a young man out here making cakes and sharing with us!

Here's what I came up with. Used Illustrator, made a grid for each size piece, overlaid pan shapes over it, and the results are attached in PDF.

Been thinking (unusual ) and perhaps if giving choices of serving sizes, perhaps price per cake size is the way to go? I dunno, just thinking outloud. Like an 8" round = $x , 10" square = $z , and let them decide cake sizes?

Yes, I'm 15 and a guy.