Kids birthday party and a cake question

[Cobblersorchard]

For reasons I won’t bore you with, I am not going to know exactly who is coming to DD’s 5th party until the last minute. I will have enough food and party bags for the maximum plus spares but am stressing about the cake quantity.

The cake she wants from M&S serves 28 max but we could end up with 34 plus a few siblings. Is it acceptable to get an additional cake that won’t be the same to cater for the overflow? Main cake is a dinosaur affair but is essentially a chocolate cake covered in choc ganache, so thinking about a second ordinary choc cake? I can’t run to two of the main cakes as they are £65.

I can’t imagine 5 year olds giving much care to it but people get very upset about show cakes that aren’t served at parties….

We don’t need a home cake, certainly not a big one. The extended family is all absent this year so no-one to eat it. DH is diabetic and so only me and a 5 year old and I’m more interested in cheese!

Don't put cake in the party bags. No-one wants it. People actively don't want it.

Include a cupcake with the party tea and keep the cake for family, far easier and no child with a mouthful of chocolate cupcake is going "Hang on! This isn't the one Sheila just blew the candles out on! We're being mugged off".

Start a new trend. Give them each a Mini Baby Bel and a DairyleavTriangle and tell them you’re thinking about their teeth .

My DD would’ve preferred this because she doesn’t like shop cake and she’s a bit odd 😃

All the parties here have cakes in bags so that is what we are doing.

We don’t need a family cake, there’s no-one to eat any.

OP, if it's this one, you can make it stretch. It's a tall cake, so cut one way into 4s, and the other way 10s. You'll get 40 slices of 2.5cm x 6cm x 15cm tall. That's fine for a party cake for 5 year olds. You need a very long sharp knife, run it under warm water as it will cut cleaner, and wipe it after each pass so you're not dragging crumbs through each slice.

Sorry just saw you posted the cake, I type really slowly!

This has to be the answer!

I may have eaten 8 cheese strings today- way better than any cake.

You make it stretch, IME the cake in party bags comes home a squished up mess and doesn't get eaten. The kids won't care.

Why do something that doesn't work for your circumstances because everyone else does?

Don't be afraid to be different OP, you could be at the heart of a cake-based revolution in your local area. Like Erin Brockovich, but for cake.

Yes that's fine to do. Most kids will just lick some icing off anyway so just make sure the extra cake has something sickly on it.

I stopped worrying about a birthday cake when I discovered that a doughnut tower was much simpler and everyone loved it. But as you have already paid for the cake, I would say it is fine to buy a shop bought tray bake for the overspill.

I’d get say a vanilla one and then kids who don’t like chocolate are catered.