“We’re not sure how big our wedding cake needs to be”
This is a question that crops up on a regular basis when potential clients first enquire about booking their cake with us here at Sticky Fingers Cake Co.
To help you along in this process I shall be explaining how we, as wedding cake makers, work out how big your ideal cake should be.
So, what constitutes a “Portion Size”? There are two different portion sizes that we work to; one being the regular “Coffee Size Portion” that being basically a finger size – in our case 1” x 1” x 5” (the depths of wedding cakes can vary from cake maker to cake maker – anything from 3” from a supermarket bought cake up to 7” but we feel 5” is the perfect height!) and the second being the “Dessert Size Portion” which is 2” x 1” x 5” – this is used when you would be having your wedding cake as the dessert; along with some seasonal berries and a dollop of cream or ice cream it’s a great way of saving on some of the catering costs and it also ensures that ALL your guests will have a slice of your yummy cake!
We would normally calculate how big your wedding cake should be when you first enquire about the estimated cost, so we would ask how many guests you will be catering for on the day and take it from there.
For instance, if you have 100 guests for the day and evening and the cake will be cut up to be served alongside the evening buffet, you would need approximately 80 finger sized portions – we always bring the numbers down to roughly 75-80% of the guest numbers as not all your guests will want to eat the cake (although I’m not sure why!!). This would normally suggest a standard three tier wedding cake.
Some couples like to take the top tier home with them so in that instance we would work out the sizes of the bottom and middle tier to make sure there were enough portions for your guests once the tiers had been cut by your caterers or make it into a smaller four tier cake – top tier for you and the three other tiers for your guests.
To help you out we have a portion size table here to give you an idea on how big your wedding cake should be.
Hope this goes some way into explaining the portion size conundrum. As always, any questions at all just drop me an email to lou@sfcakeco.com
Happy Baking!
Lou x