Pre-sliced cake?

Hello!

I have a graduation cake order (for a school) for a large sheet cake, 16x24", with a grad cap made out of the 1/2 ball pan with a fondant covered cardboard mortar board. I am charging $140 for this cake. The woman who ordered it, on behalf of the school, has asked me to deliver it pre-sliced. This is the first time I've ever been asked to do that and I find it so odd. Why pay so much money for a decorated cake and then mess it up by slicing it before the guests see it? Has anyone else been asked to do this?

At least I don't have to get this one absolutely perfect-easy to hide any imperfections with the cut of a knife! LOL!

Julie

Thanks for the great suggestions, ideas, and comments! I love the suggestion to slice with floss and then do the borders and writing. I think I'll probably have to slice it at the venue however because I'm afraid that pieces could pull away during transport. I may decorate then slice with floss after delivery and I'll plan on stacking the hat then as well.

KHalstead, I've just been selling my cakes for about a year and in fact I did 2 cakes this size for the same school last year, same design. I only charged $185 for both, plus she talked me into serving the cake for no extra charge (stupid me, I've learned to say NO now!). This year I wised up and quoted a more realistic price. The woman was shocked, but she did get back to me, scaled down the order to one cake, and ordered it despite the new price. Believe it or not, my price is pretty cheap compared to the one other place that makes American style cakes here (I'm in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). They charge about 50% more than what I'm charging (and my cake/icing tastes alot better!).

Julie

Well, I delivered this cake today. Ultimately I decided to just talk to the gal again when I got there as I was delivering the cake at 9 am and the ceremony was at 10:30, hoping I could talk her out of cutting it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn't going to work to precut it, using any method. First, because the woman scaled back on the order from what I recommended, to get the number of servings she needed she wanted me to cut 1"x2" pieces-this is a regular old single layer sheet cake. With that puny of a piece I was sure they'd start falling over on the sides of the cake while being transported. Second, I was really worried about the stability of the cap stacked on top if the cake was cut underneath it.

So I got there and the woman rushed over to make sure it was pre-cut. I explained the dilemma and told her that I really think she'd be better off leaving the cake intact while the parents are arriving, then have someone cut it at the back of the room (it was in the school gym) during the ceremony. She then asked me to score the top at least. Well, I used a knife to carefully score the icing and she came over to check it out when I was half way through. Then she was concerned that it wasn't a clean cut, ie a bit of the icing pulled up and it looked a little choppy. I told her that that was what happens when you pull a knife through icing, which is why cakes are not normally pre-cut. I also had fondant lettering and flowers which I couldn't score through so I had to kind of score to the sides of the letters and flowers.

In the end a cake that was really pretty beautiful ended up looking like cr*p. I didn't even take a picture of it. Luckily, the two teachers whose classes the ceremony was for had seen me come in and took a look at the cake while it was still in the box before it got discombobulated. I went upto one of their classrooms before leaving and apologized and let him know that I tried to talk the women (school counselor) out of messing with it before serving and he said he understood, to quote "some people just won't listen!".

Oh, and the woman bought huge plates to serve those tiny pieces on! I think they were about 8" plates! Can you imagine what people thought being served 1x2" pieces of sheet cake on 8" plates?! LOL! I just hope people don't think it was on my recommendation if they find out the cake was from me!

Thanks Again!

Julie