Hi all,

Ok, my cakes at a little over 4" high by the time they have been filled and covered.  I recommend servings of 1x2" for sponge and 1x1" for fruit as, I understand, is recommended by the various charts.  I had never actually eaten a piece of my own cake at full 'wedding cake' size until this past weekend at a wedding.  They had only cut it to 1x1 and it was still ENORMOUS!  I couldn't imagine being presented with a 1x2" slab.  Am i missing something?? Or am I just fed up of eating cake...?

idk -- but pass your plate i'll finish yours...

Hahaha k8!! I just made a cake for my fam...6 adults.  It was an 8" round.  We all had a piece, then I left the rest for my parents.  My dad apparently finished it off that afternoon.  We all had a good howl when I told them that cake was "meant" to serve 20!! And that's party servings, no wedding! 

Yes, we eat too much cake, but it also depends on what else you're eating with it.  Usually at a wedding you might be stuffed already.

I have the same reaction...i took a cake to a first grade party and when I was cutting it I started making the pieces smaller than 1x2" because that was way too much cake for little kids! In my opinion, they probably would disagree.

1 x 1 x 4 ? What an odd size of a slice! I would have thought they cut 1 inch width, 4 inches height and a couple of inches depth to make it a slice. Otherwise it is a vertical sample like they do with cheese. :)

The 1x1 was for fruitcake...i think that you'd be ill if you ate more than that at one sitting, it's so rich (and delicious).

I am with you - 1 inch by 2 inc by 4 inch is a huge piec of cake. I always get more pieces if cake than the wilton servng charts say that they will serve. I usually make a 6 inch round cake and that is easily split between 6 adults/2 kids and left overs for the freezer for lunches.

Here's where some confusion about which country you are from rears it's lil' head.  In Australia, they have coffee portions, or finger portions which are 1x1x4.  In America, a "serving" can be a huge wedge-shaped slice (1/8" of an 8"x4" round cake) or up to 28 "servings", depending on who is cutting the cake.

For fun one day, I made up a Redneck Serving Chart which has recommended servings of 1/3 of an 8"x4" cake as a "serving".  My nephew thought it was so funny that he created a whole excel/pdf thing for the chart, using the Wilton wedding chart as a guide.   He even added a new pan shape:  Armadillo

I never posted it because I didn't want it to be offensive to anyone.  (But I still loved the Armadillo shaped pan....lol)

A cakecentral member, mrschwammers, created a wonderful way to make "fake" cake servings out of cardstock or paper.  These are great to show people what a correct wedding serving looks like on a plate.

http://www.wilton.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=8&threadid=142470&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=   

p.s.  On the redneck chart, a 6" cake is a single serving.....

I dunno about anyone else, but I'd love to see the Redneck chart!

I second that, totally unoffensive and is what I am sure would be an excellent laugh!

As to servings, my yes, a 1x2x4 or so inch cake is a lot of cake (and I am a cake lover!). I think we (meaning Americans )  are used to the wedge cut cake.  Thinking back to my childhood square cake portions only came from the 9x13 obligatory glass pan cake my mother always made.  For my daughters recent birthday, I made an 8 inch cake for 4 children and three adults. It was my standard 8"- 4 layers of cake and 3 of frosting totaling about 4" high.   I cut and served it off the wedding standard  of 1x2x4. We literally ate only about a third of it. I ended up sending half of the remaining cake home with my mother and sister.  And the rest took us until the end of the week to finish. So when you sell a cake based on non-wedge size slices, it is perceived as a "small" amount of cake. It is kinda of a fun aha moment when you can demonstrate what the serving size actually looks like.  

The first time I saw a cake instructor cut a chocolate cake, 8"x4" round, into 24 servings for the cake class at adult school, (with 5 servings left over!!!), I could not believe it!

I was brand new to cake decorating in 2010 and never knew such a thing was even remotely possible.  When I saw the Wilton chart in my first course at Michaels,  I thought it  was a hilarious joke put together by  some guy in 1950.   Like @singersoul above, my experience was with wedge shaped pieces for the rare, fancy, round, birthday cake purchased at the supermarket, or the 2" squares cut from a sheet pan or pyrex glass sheet pan. 

Filling?   Layers?    Huh?

p.s.  Send me a PM with your regular email address if you want the redneck chart and I'll see if I can send it as an attachment.  No promises, since the chart is on my old XP desktop, and my newer laptop just switched to Windows 10 so I have no idea where anything is or how to send it.