Choosing a wedding cake is not only about choosing the filling and design, but also about calculating the optimal weight. It is necessary to make sure that all guests have at least a piece, and at the same time there is a minimum of surplus left, so that the bride and groom do not have to overpay. It is impossible to do this with absolute accuracy. However, there are several ways to calculate your wedding cake more accurately.
We will tell you how to find out the required number of kilograms on your own.
What is dessert for?
At a wedding banquet, dessert served with tea is considered the highlight of the evening. It ends the banquet part of the event, and it is the end of the holiday that is remembered best. Many couples strive to make a cake that is unusual and reflects their individuality, so they turn to experienced confectioners.
Tea drinking usually takes place when the main meal has already exhausted itself, but the guests have not yet been escorted home. They can relax, take a break from competitions and entertainment, while enjoying a delicious dessert.
On the wedding day, the newlyweds are a kind of talisman for everyone else, radiating good luck and happiness. This does not mean that their luck will decrease because of this - on the contrary, the guests, when trying the dessert, symbolically wish the resulting married couple more positive events in life.
Wedding planner
It is believed that by treating friends and relatives with a birthday cake, the bride and groom share their warm feelings and well-being.
Elena Sokolova
Event host
Even those who do not like sweets usually do not refuse a wedding cake, because it has a symbolic meaning.
Alina Kurkina
The cake is selected in such a way that it not only emphasizes the festive atmosphere, but also fits into the overall concept of the wedding. If the celebration is formalized in a certain way, then the tea party should correspond to it. For this purpose, decorations characteristic of the chosen theme are used.
Determining the required number of kilograms
There are two options for how to calculate the weight of a wedding cake - either trust the professionals, or do everything yourself. In the first case, you just need to consult with the pastry chef, who, based on his experience, will tell you what weight will be suitable for a particular wedding.
Important nuances
This option is only suitable if the master does not seek to make the cake larger for his own benefit. If the future newlyweds do not trust the pastry chef, but professional organizers are taking care of their wedding, it is better for them to understand for themselves how to calculate kg of cake for the wedding.
Determining the optimal number of kilograms on your own will take more time. First of all, it’s worth determining how filling the main menu will be. If there are a lot of appetizers and salads on the tables, and there are several hot dishes, then by the end of the banquet the guests are unlikely to want to eat a large piece of cake. In this case, you will need to reduce the serving size.
Another important point is the way the dessert is decorated and its filling. For example, a soufflé between the cake layers will create volume, but will be much lighter than cream made from boiled condensed milk. If you use air filling, then you should focus not on the weight of the cake, but on its size. , used to decorate the dessert, has a denser structure than, and therefore weighs more. In this case, the richness of the cake in both cases will be approximately the same.
Landmarks
First, let's look at how to calculate a wedding cake for the number of guests. It is believed that from 100 to 200 g is enough for one invitee, depending on the filling and design.
If the main menu is not too filling, then it is better to focus on the figure of 250 g per person. Most often, this is not necessary, so the best option is chosen - 150 g per guest. Through simple calculations, this number is multiplied by the number of guests, and the optimal weight of the wedding cake is obtained.
- If you plan to organize a modest buffet or buffet at the wedding, then there should be at least two standard pieces per person.
- If the menu is wide, containing a lot of meat, then one piece will be enough, which, moreover, should be small.
- If the menu is wide, but not high in calories, then the portion of dessert increases.
When the weight of the cake is determined, you need to add a kind of reserve to this number - 1 kg for every 10 people. This will avoid incidents with a lack of dessert, in addition, guests will be grateful if they can take a piece home for their children.
Before you calculate your wedding cake, you need to consider that it is better to order with a reserve rather than back to back. Even if there is some leftover cake, it can be put aside until the second day of the wedding or distributed to those friends or relatives who could not come to the wedding. The following nuances should also be taken into account.
- There may be people at the wedding with allergies or diabetes - these need to be subtracted from the total when calculating weight. However, they may also ask for a piece to take with them for their relatives, so it’s worth deciding on this point in advance.
- If the cake is multi-tiered, then sometimes the top part weighing about 0.5 kg is left for the newlyweds so that they can enjoy the sweet in a relaxed atmosphere after the banquet. In this case, the weight of the remaining tiers is calculated.
- It is worth determining how many men, women and children will be at the celebration. Despite the fact that many people think that girls eat little, they still have a sweet tooth, so there is no need to reduce their portion.
- Children usually fill up on the main menu, but may ask for a piece of cake to take home, but for men you can reduce the portion if they are indifferent to sweets.
Summary
The bride and groom know their friends and relatives better than any pastry chef or wedding planner, so it is advisable to decide on the optimal amount of cake yourself. If you take into account all the nuances and do not forget about the “reserve stock”, everyone will be happy with the cake, and there will be no large surpluses left.
Hi all. Today is an unusual article without a prescription. But it is informative. Many people ask me how to correctly calculate the amount of dough for a particular form. So, today I am sharing this important information with you.
At the moment, I actively publish posts on Instagram. And, having arranged an interactive session, I found out that in addition to recipes, you, my readers, are also interested in knowing information on various topics related to baking and ingredients.
This will be my first such useful post on the blog lately, but definitely not the last.
So, many people at the beginning of their confectionery journey are faced with the problem of recalculating ingredients for different forms.
And, I’ll tell you frankly, most often an ordinary housewife who is not involved in making cakes to order has a mold of 24-26 in diameter. This concerned me too. I was baking a classic sponge cake and didn’t understand why it was so small in height.
Most often, all recipes are designed for shapes of size 18-20. The biscuit then comes out to a height of 6-8 centimeters, so how do you understand how much dough should be put in a mold of a larger or smaller diameter?
Everything is very simple.
K = diameter of the squared shape we need / squared diameter of the shape according to the original recipe
So, I’ll give an example for clarity.
Let's assume that according to the recipe we have ingredients for an 18-centimeter mold, but we only have a 22-centimeter mold. How to count from eighteen to twenty-two centimeters?
Thus we calculated the coefficient. What to do next?
We simply multiply all the ingredients given to us in the recipe by this coefficient.
Let's say that according to the recipe for form 18 we need to use 300 grams of flour.
We multiply these 300 grams by our coefficient of 1.5 and get 450 grams.
And thus we calculate all the ingredients.
Let me give you another example.
Let's say we have a sponge cake recipe for form 20. And we want to make a trial version in 16 cm in diameter.
So, let's calculate the coefficient again.
Therefore, we multiply all the components we need by this coefficient of 0.64.
The entire calculation will take you no more than 5 minutes. And if you bake to order, then I advise you to calculate in advance all the necessary ingredients for your working biscuit recipes for all the necessary shapes. Thus, you will not need to waste your time on this later.
Of course, you will immediately ask about eggs. After all, there is no way to add 1.75 from an egg.
So, if the eggs according to the recipe are indicated not in grams, but in pieces, then I round in this way: everything that is more than 0.5 is rounded up, everything that is less than 0.5 is rounded down. That is, if, when recalculating, I end up with 3.25 eggs, then I will add 3 pieces. And if it’s 5.7, then I’ll take 6 eggs.
With these quick calculations, you can now easily calculate the ingredients you need for all your forms.
I just want to draw your attention to the fact that it is always necessary to take into account the height of the finished biscuit. And if according to the recipe it should be 7 centimeters in height, and your mold is 5-6 centimeters in height, then you need to bake this sponge cake in two batches if you need it exactly this height.
I hope that my article will shed light on these mathematical calculations and that you will not have problems with this in the future.
In the near future I will write another useful article about how to correctly calculate the required amount of cream for a particular form.
One of the most frequently asked questions at master classes when we prepare cakes is as follows: And the weight of the cake! What is the weight of the cake?!
That is why I began to include information in recipes about the weight of the cake we are preparing.
But you’re wondering (I’m sure you are) how to calculate advance cake weight based on recipe?
Let's first figure out how to do this for sponge cakes. And if you like it, then we will move on and I will tell you how I plan the weight and volume of mousse cakes.
So, you have a recipe that indicates the amount of ingredients, and you need to understand how much the resulting cake will weigh according to this recipe.
Let's count!
First, let’s determine what components the cake contains: sponge cake, cream, impregnation, layers such as jelly, berries, ganache, nuts, caramel, etc.
For each such component there will be your own calculation rules.
Biscuit
In order to determine the weight of the biscuit, you need to convert all the components of the dough into grams.
Quantity eggs, in recipes it is usually indicated in pieces, with the exception of technical dessert cards for professional confectioners. Here it will be useful to remember that manufacturers mark eggs depending on their weight into 3 categories: C2 - small, the weight of one such egg without a shell is 40-45 g, C1 - medium, the weight of an egg without a shell is 45-50 g, C0 - large, egg weight without shell: 50-57 g.
Based on this, we convert the number of eggs according to the recipe from pieces to grams.
To do this, it is convenient to use a comparative table of product measures in grams.
Now we add up the weight of all the ingredients in grams and get the weight of the biscuit dough.
During the baking process, moisture will evaporate from the dough and the weight of the finished biscuit will be less than the weight of the dough that we prepared.
The degree of “shrinkage” will depend on several factors:
- The longer the biscuit is baked, the more shrinkage there will be.
- The less fatty components and sugar in the biscuit and the more moisture (proteins, liquid), the greater the shrinkage will be.
That is, cake-type biscuits with a large amount of butter and sugar will have less shrinkage than Dacquoise-type biscuits.
Typically, such shrinkage is 20-30%, that is, if the dough was 500 g, then the biscuit will be 350 - 400 g.
There were the most calculations with biscuits, it will be easier later)))
Cream
If this is not some kind of custard, but a cream obtained by whipping and/or mixing the ingredients, then its weight is calculated very easily - we simply sum up the weight of all the ingredients included in the cream.
If the cream is custard, then the finished cream will weigh slightly less than all its ingredients, since part of the liquid evaporates during the brewing process. Here you can apply a factor of 90%. For example, if the weight of all the components of the custard is 500 g, then the prepared cream itself will weigh 450 g.
Impregnation for biscuit
To determine the weight of the impregnation in the cake, you can simply add all the ingredients. But taking into account the fact that part of the impregnation remains unused, a coefficient of 50 - 90% can be applied (depending on how much impregnation was used).
Caramel, ganache, berry layers
The 90-95% coefficient can also be used for such cake ingredients as: caramel, ganache, berry layers. Following the custard example above.
All other components(nuts, wafer crumbs, etc.) that are not subjected to heat treatment are included in the weight of the cake according to the weight of the ingredients from the recipe.
Now let’s, to make it clearer, as an example, let’s calculate the weight of the Bounty Lime cake, which we prepared at the series of free master classes “CANDY MOOD-2.0”
| Qty | Unit. | Weight, g. | |
| Biscuit | |||
| Eggs (large, C0) | 3 | PC. | 165 |
| Sugar | 90 | G. | 90 |
| Wheat flour | 90 | G. | 90 |
| coconut flakes | 50 | G. | 50 |
| Milk | 75 | G. | 75 |
| Vegetable oil | 40 | G. | 40 |
| Baking powder | 5 | G. | 5 |
| WITH total weightingredients | 515 | ||
| Biscuit weight, coefficient 75% | 386 | ||
| Impregnation for biscuit | |||
| Water | 70 | G. | 35 |
| Lime juice | 2 | tbsp | 20 |
| Sugar | 50 | G. | 25 |
| Total weight of ingredients | 80 | ||
| Impregnation weight, coefficient 80% | 64 | ||
| Coconut-lime ganache | |||
| Chocolate white | 100 | G. | 100 |
| Cream, 33-35% | 70 | G. | 70 |
| coconut flakes | 35 | G. | 35 |
| Lime zest | 1 | lime | 5 |
| Total weight of ingredients | 210 | ||
| Ganache weight, coefficient 90% | 189 | ||
| Cream for cake layer | |||
| Cream cheese | 450 | G. | 450 |
| Cream, 33-35% | 125 | G. | 125 |
| Powdered sugar | 75 | G. | 75 |
| Total weightingredients = cream weight | 650 | ||
| Cake coating cream | |||
| Cream cheese | 250 | G. | 250 |
| Butter | 50 | G. | 50 |
| Powdered sugar | 50 | G. | 50 |
| Cocoa | 15 | G. | 15 |
| Total weight of ingredients = weight of cream | 365 | ||
| Total cake weight | 1646 |
Thus, the future cake (excluding decorations) will weigh about 1.6 kg.
Is it really easy?)))
Still have questions? Write in the comments - I will be happy to answer!
A wedding cake is an accent dish that emphasizes the importance of a special event. At a wedding feast, this is the apotheosis of festive food. To ensure that there are no guests at the table deprived of this sweet dessert, you need to accurately calculate the amount of confectionery and know how much each piece weighs.
To order a treat from the pastry chef, you need to know the number of guests. The weight of one serving may vary depending on the type of event (banquet, buffet, sales competition). Calculating the weight of the cake is one of the most important details of the entire organizational complex of the holiday.
Confectionery specialists have extensive experience in determining the size and weight of a sweet product. It is advisable to indicate in the order the number of invited people belonging to different age categories (children, adults, elderly guests).
It is also important to know the time of serving the wedding dessert on the table. This can happen in the middle of the celebration or before its end.
In the first case, portions may be 50% larger than when serving refreshments at the end of the event.
How many grams of cake do you need per person for a wedding?
As a rule, men and older people have a rather cool attitude towards sweet dishes. Among the sweet tooth lovers we can safely include female guests and children.
Based on these conditions, portions of treats can be divided into two weight categories. The first category includes sweet pieces weighing 100 grams. For those with a sweet tooth, they plan to cut the cake into pieces weighing 150 grams. These average portion standards were established based on many years of pastry chefs’ practice in preparing wedding desserts.
It is possible that there may be people among the guests who do not eat confectionery. There is no need to specifically identify this contingent. This can be taken into account if guests inform themselves about this in advance.
Wedding cake weight calculation
In this video you will be shown a program that will help you calculate the amount of cake for a wedding:
You can use a table that determines the proportional dependence of the mass of the dessert in kg on the number of guests and the number of tiers of the product body. Many tables on this topic are published on the Internet.
How much cake do you need for a wedding?
On the media network you can find a number of online calculators for calculating not only the weight of a dish, but also determining the amount of ingredients needed for its preparation, and you can find out its recipe in our next one.
This allows you to quickly obtain initial data on the minimum costs for preparing a holiday dessert.
The calculator interface allows you to enter in the appropriate lines the expected number of invited people and how many of them do not eat sweets. The calculator can take into account various competitions and events, for example, the sale of portions of dessert.
After entering the required data on the interface, click the “Calculate” button. The display will instantly show the optimal weight of the wedding dessert, for example, the norm is 35 kg.
There you will also see how many grams of cake per person you need to have for the wedding table, as well as how much this or that type of treat costs.
The optimal weight of a holiday treat must take into account the arrival of unexpected guests who have been overlooked. Possible unforeseen product losses should be taken into account. It would also not hurt to take care to save part of the dish for the 2nd day of celebration in a narrow circle of close relatives.