Hi: I have a request from the org I work at to make a cake for a colleague's retirement. I guess they have seen my other stuff and really liked it and felt it would be a nice personal touch coming from me. They want me to incorporate her 3 loves: shoes, travel and golf, in that order. I am so excited about doing this cake - just soo much fun! Within a few hours, I had most of it planned. I want to do a 3 tier with each tier representing her interests with a gumpaste shoe as the topper. I"m going to use silhouettes of either golf bags or balls, suitcases or landmarks for travel and shoes of course. I will also have all the 3 silhouettes sticking out of the cake on wire, reading "Enjoy" "Retirement" "Linda" -each word on each silhouette. She is a very colorful person and wears very colorful, but stylish clothes., so I would like to have it colorful, if possible, but most importantly - stylish and elegant.
My questions are:
1) The cake is for 60 people approx. I own a 14", 10" & 6"- that serves about 100. A 12", 8" and 6" would be the perfect, amount, but is that too many inches between the 12" and 8" - would that look odd?? I thought the rule was to have even inches between tiers? The 10", 8" and 6" would be too shy of the serving requirements (53). I'd rather go over than under...I've only done 2 tiers, never 3, though I'm fine with that. I want it 3 tiers to incorporate the 3 loves, that's why I'm avoiding the 2 tier. Oh and I would have to go and buy an 8" and a 12" though it would be a good investment for me for the future, as I don't see myself ever not doing cakes. I'm sure making too much cake (40 servings more!)?would be more costly than buying the right sized pans ($35 approx)?
2) Does it look okay to do 3 different colors, 1 for each tier (green for golf, etc..) If so, how could I tie it together? Is there a better way - keeping in a color spectrum etc..? Or would I be better to stick with simplicity white cake with black silhouettes and the color on the top (shoe), or a 2 colored them, with black or brown or white silhouettes? Again, most importantly, I don't want to sacrafice style/elegance for color.

I would appreciate any advice/ideas! TIA

A 10", 8" and 6" would give you enough cake and the sizes are evenly spaced. I buy my cake pans at Micheal's with a 40%-50% or 60% OFF coupon. Saves a ton! I just bought a 10" round for less then 5 bucks after tax. Love the idea of flat silhouettes. Sounds like a cool cake.

Based on 4" high tiers and a 1x2x4 piece of cake which is a perfect slice.
10"-38 servings
8"-24 servings
6"-12 servings

74 servings and still over your needed amount of cake you need.


*and then you only need to buy the 8" pan.

Thanks - I did go to Michael's and bought the 8" with the 40% off coupon today in anticipation of doing it that way....but they only had 2" pans in stock so I have to bake 2X - oh well...at least my other pans are 4".

I just heard that they won't be having the 50% off coupons on the bills anymore - totally sucks! It was not on my bill today..

And they are discontinuing the flyer coupons. You have to get them emailed -only option. Not sure if you can still get them on that site (flyerland? I think it was...)

Yes, I'm excited about the cake -should be fun! I'll post photos...