Hey everyone, I am sitting here totally confused about serving sizes. I've looked at all of the charts which seem to have different numbers. I'm trying to figure out the sizes needed for a cake to feed app. 160-170 people. How many people will a 14,10 and 6 inch double layer cake feed. All of these pans are 3" deep. Or, I could use 14,12 and 10 ?It seems that a 10 inch top cake would be to big. I don't know. HELP PLEASE!!!!!
Are you going to be serving wedding sized servings or party sized servings? Party sized servings are about twice the size of wedding servings.
Theresa 
It's for a sweet 16 party and I will not be serving the cake. One of the mothers told me that they do not want to have a lot of cake left over and its going to be a lot of teenagers at the party so I can't imagine that they all will eat cake. What confuses me is that on the Wilton chart the servings are for a 1 layer 3 inch. What about a 2 layer 3 inch? Is it double the servings on the chart since the cake is taller and can be cut slimmer?
I use Earlene's cake chart as my serving bible. The serving sizes are more realistic than Wilton's. If you look down the right side you can find the number of servings you need, and she's already calculated exactly what size tiers you should use:
http://www.earlenescakes.com/ckserchart.htm
You are going to have a hard time reaching that number of servings with one cake if 14" is your largest tier. You'd have to use all of them, and in my experience, I REALLY don't like to stack layers with less than 3" difference between them (ie: 5", 8", 11", 14").
Here's an idea:
Make a 6/10/14 stacked cake then make another 14in cake for the back (minimal decorations since no one will see it). You could also make satellite cakes instead but that just adds to the work. I go by the wilton charts because my cakes are tall and you get enough cake in the serving size they use. That will give you like 3 slices under the 170.
I would also make sure you let the person getting the cake know how to slice a large cake. Most people don't have any idea that it needs to be done in a certain way.
I agree with kellym about stacking cakes that close in size.
I leave a list of things that need to be removed; pearls, dows, etc..
I also leave a disclaimer that the cake may have had contact with nuts and people with peanut allergies should avoid eating it. I rarely use nuts but, I want to make sure in case I did and don't think about it.
I leave a cutting chart.
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