What is this about 'Sheet Cake In The Back'?

My venue actually offers a fake decorated styrofoam cake that you can display and then they cut and serve a sheet cake in the kitchen. A lot of places take the cake away to cut it and plate it anyway so why not use a sheet cake? Your guests will be none the wiser.

Misty - we just had sheet cake for everyone, regardless.

But a sheet cake in the back is a wonderful budget saver - honestly, if any of your guests even notices, they're not going to care. Because, let's face it...FREE CAKE trumps all concerns.

Ive been to a wedding where they had a small decorated cake for cutting, but they served different cake to all the guests. they had 6 different types of cheesecake for guests to choose from! it was AWESOME. their reception was at the cheesecake factory. because they were all pre-sliced, everyone got a piece very quickly. didnt have to wait for them to slice the "wedding cake" up.

i didnt mind it much, thats just me personally. im not sure whats considered rude to the masses...

I've heard of this being done but never seen it, basically you can rent fake cakes to get that big wedding cake look, they have a piece of real cake in it for the cake cutting, then staff wheel it away to "cut" it....they just cut up and serve the sheet cake

We are doing a small decorated cake that will serve about 80 and cupcakes. They will obviously know they didn't get the "real cake" but it's the same kind of cake, so it really doesn't matter.

I did it with my first wedding. We had the cake that was cut, and we did cut the rest of the cake. But at my first recpetion we had over 400 guests. We had a cake that fed about 150, and served the rest from a sheet cake in the back. The brought out the cut cake on platters and put them where the buffet table was. It was the same flavor and filling as the wedding cake, and guests didn't even know they hadn't gotten a piece of the actual cake. And if they did, they didn't care.

The way to do it is have the cake in the back, cut in th back and served on plated on platters like appetizers would be. Roaming servers are even better.

The baker can make both cakes, so they would be the same flavor and such. Just have a smaller cake to cut for pictures, and then more cake in the kitchen being cut to serve the guests. All will get the "same" cake, just the shape it was before being cut will be different.

We will have a little over 200 people for our wedding, so the cake lady suggested that in order to get the designed cake I really want and stay within budget for the amount of guests we will have we would also need a sheet cake in the back to accommodate all guests. She said that people could be cutting the sheet cake well in advance so everyone could begin passing out cake when the time comes. They may also need to cut up the pretty one for all guests if they need to, but that is how we are doing it with the "sheet cake in the back".

@Meghan- How much cheaper was it to do a small cake to cute and a sheet cake in back vs. having a bigger wedding cake?

I did read an article the other day (and sorry I can't remember the link) that just said to be careful about having a sheet cake if it's not from the same baker... some baker's wont allow it... just a heads up

We're saving a lot of money by having the bakery we're using do a regular 3 tier cake that will serve about 160-175 and then a sheet cake (which may either be in the back or on a nearby table) for others. They'll both be different flavors, so it kind of helps accomodate everyone + saves some money.

We did a grocery store cake- so it wasn't that expensive with all the decor. I think we ended up saving about $200, because the sheet cake is pretty cheap. There was no decoration on it except the same texture to the icing. But keep in mind- this was 12 years ago... so my memory may be fading.

I also read the same thing that NiseyyD read, another article also suggest doing it by the same bakery since it might be a different taste and change peoples opinion on the bakery you've been raving about.

You may want to ask about a kitchen cake instead of a sheet cake. Typically a sheet cake is just a single layer of cake with frosting on the outside. All bakeries are different but in my case each tier of my cakes consists of 4 layers of cake with 3 layers of filling. So a slice of sheet cake would look and taste totally different than the wedding cake. Ask your baker if the "back" cake can be exactly the same as the "main" cake just minus the decoration and fondant, if you're having it.

You definitely want all the cakes to be provided by the same place...actually most custom cakeries have a clause in their contract prohibiting cake from other providers.

HTH

I think it depends on the baker. I was going to do a fake cake for the venue (with just a small area for us to do our cake cutting) and then have cake in the back for everyone and 3 bakers/cake artists have told me that it ISN'T cheaper. In fact, it's more expensive because it is more work and more supplies for them.

Doing an ALL real cake requires cake, frosting and any decorations, etc (you get the idea) BUT for a fake cake with the sheets in the back -- you have to pay for the styrofoam, pay for them to decoration the fake cake like you want then they have to cut an area of the fake cake out for "cake cutting" then make cake for that area then you have to pay for them to bake sheet cake(s), frost those for the back.

One cake artist/baker broke it all down for me and it is more time consuming and more supplies (so more money) than just doing an all real cake and when I've gotten price quoted on REAL vs FAKE --- REAL has always been cheaper than doing it the fake way.

There are two totally different things being discussed here - a fake reception cake as opposed to a real reception cake with kitchen cakes to supplement for additional servings.

Most cakeries will not offer fake cakes for the reasons Kristina B. states. However most will offer supplemental servings in sheet or kitchen cakes. As far as cost goes there should be a very substantial savings for large weddings if you have kitchen cakes. All cakeries will require the reception cake be a minimum size before you can add the kitchen cakes - typically about 100 servings.