Dessert Table Quantities: How Many Desserts Per Person

How Many Desserts Per Person

Plan 1 dessert serving per guest when you serve one dessert, and size each dessert at 70 percent of that when three or more share a table. For a full dessert table that works out to about 3.9 small servings per guest, and a wedding or birthday cake served next to a table only needs to cover about 75 percent of the guest list. Those are the rules the FeedMyGuests dessert calculators use, and every table on this page is built from them.

Dessert is the course hosts over-order most, because every item is sized as if it were the only one. A cake for 50, plus 100 cookies for 50, plus 75 brownies for 50, is three desserts for 150 people. The fix is the shared reduction: each dessert on a table is one of several, and the calculator cuts it by 30 percent to match how people actually take dessert, which is a small piece of two or three things.

How to Use These Numbers

Decide first whether dessert is one thing or a table. One thing means one dessert at its full figure: read the "on its own" table below. A table means three to five desserts, each at the shared figure: read the dessert table worked example. In both cases, multiply by the guest count and round up to what the bakery or the store sells, a dozen cupcakes, a sheet of brownies, a 12-slice cake.

Count children as full guests for dessert. They eat less dinner and at least as much dessert, so the half-portion rule that applies to the main course does not apply here. If the event has a cake-cutting moment, a birthday, a wedding, a retirement, treat the cake as its own line and the table as the rest, which is what the last table on this page does.

Dessert Per Person Table

These are the per-guest figures the FeedMyGuests calculators use for each dessert in the site's food data, shown two ways: the full figure when that dessert is the only one served, and the shared figure when it sits on a table with others. The price is per piece at retail.

Cookies and brownies carry more than one per guest because a cookie is a small serving and people take two. Cake and cupcakes are one per guest because a slice or a cupcake is a full dessert. On a shared table those figures shrink together, which keeps the mix of the table the same while the total comes down.

Worked Examples: A Dessert Table for 10, 25, 50, and 100 Guests

The table below is a four-dessert spread, cake, cupcakes, cookies, and brownies, run through the calculator at the shared setting for each guest count. Cake is shown in slices and in whole 12-slice cakes. The servings row adds every piece up, and the per-guest row shows why the table works: each guest gets a few small things, not four full desserts.

Read the 50-guest column. 35 slices (3 cakes) of cake, 35 cupcakes, 70 cookies, and 53 brownies come to 193 pieces, about 3.9 per guest, for $198 to $526. The 53 brownies are a single sheet pan cut small. The cookies are the cheapest line and the one to round up if you want a buffer.

Each Dessert on Its Own

When dessert is one thing, use the full figure. This table runs each dessert alone at every guest count, with the cost, so you can compare a single cake against a single tray of anything else.

A Wedding or Birthday Cake Next to a Dessert Table

When there is a cake-cutting and a dessert table, not everyone takes a slice of both. The wedding food calculator sizes the cake to about 75 percent of the guest list in that case, which is within rounding of the calculator's 70 percent shared figure. This table shows both the full cake and the reduced cake in slices and in 12-slice cakes. For tiered wedding cakes, the wedding food guide converts slices to tier sizes.

What People Get Wrong About Dessert Tables

Sizing every dessert for the whole crowd

Four desserts each sized for 50 guests is dessert for 200. Fix: once three or more desserts share the table, size each at 70 percent of its stand-alone figure. The worked example above already does it; the cake, cupcake, cookie, and brownie calculators do it when you tick "other food served".

Ordering a full cake and a full table

A cake for 100 next to a table for 100 leaves half the cake in the box. Fix: 75 percent of the guest list for the cake when a table is served, 75 slices for 100 guests instead of 100, and put the saving into the table.

Cutting party slices at wedding size

A 12-slice party cake cut into thin 1 by 2 inch wedding slices serves more people than the calculator assumes, and a party cake cut into big wedges serves fewer. Fix: tell whoever is cutting what the slice count is. The calculator's 12 slices per cake is a normal party slice.

Halving dessert for children

Kids eat half a dinner portion and a full dessert portion, sometimes more. Fix: count every child as a full guest on the dessert table, and put the cupcakes and cookies at the front where they can reach them.

Only one small-bite option

When cookies are the only thing that does not need a plate and a fork, they vanish and the cake sits. Fix: at least two hand-held items, cookies and brownies, cupcakes and bars, so the standing crowd has somewhere to go. The four-dessert mix above has three.

Putting it all out at once

A full table at the start looks generous and looks picked over an hour later. Fix: set out about two thirds and refill from a covered tray in the kitchen. Cream-filled or custard desserts stay chilled until they are served and come off the table after two hours.

Plan It With the Calculators

Run your own headcount with these tools. Each one uses the same per-person figures as the tables on this page.

• Cake calculator, cupcakes, cookies, and brownies: each dessert at any headcount, alone or with other food served.
• Wedding food calculator for the tier chart and the cake-with-a-dessert-table note, and the wedding food guide for the full reception.
• The birthday party food guide and kids party food guide for cake-cutting parties.
• The dessert table math article for what a table costs against a single dessert.
• The catering food calculator guide for the rest of the meal, the food calculator index, and the full list of calculators.