To think this is poor form bordering on a bit cruel? (Child’s birthday cake)

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Just took my DSs (6 & 4) to a school friend’s fifth birthday. This beautiful, huge, professionally-made cake was brought out and all children duly sang happy birthday and marvelled at this kids’ dream of a cake (it was covered in rainbow icing, glitter and actual swirly lollipops, for crying out loud). The cake was then boxed up uncut and taken home at the end of the party by the family - it was not sliced up and distributed to the party guests. There wasn’t even a cheaper cake offered as an alternative. DS1 was fuming and I had a hard time trying to be diplomatic about it and coming up with a reasonable explanation. DS2 was so tanked on Haribo he wasn’t too bothered.

Now, I’m a little bit forrin (Australian) and have always found the piece of cake in a napkin in the party bag a bit odd and British (we just eat the cake at the party in Australia) but this complete cake denial is new. Cruel and new.

AIBU? Or is this just a British cake-withholding custom I have not yet been exposed to?

Nope, that's very weird. I could almost forgive it if they have a different cake for party bags, but no cake at all is awful.

YANBU - very thoughtless, and not at all in the spirit of a child's birthday party.

YANBU! Keep the cake at home if you aren't willing to share!

This made me laugh. I’m not sure about others but cake in the bag for me is for only 2 reasons. The first being that there is not enough time to eat the cake as most places only allow 1.5 hours for party’s or if it’s at home I don’t want crumbs anywhere.
I always serve cake at the party.

Weird not normal at all. If they didn't want to use up the expensive cake a few cheap Tesco tray bakes would have done the job and cost about a fiver.

YANBU I’ve not heard of this.
Although now that I’ve said that my dd(10) has a sleepover for 9 other girls on her birthday and we totally forgot about her cake, didn’t do candles or singing or owt (thanks to the dramas we had to endure refereeing with almost a dozen pubescent girls in the house)

It does sound very odd. What on earth were they planning to do with the cake?

Unless it was not actually edible. Some cakes are made with types of using which are inedible and just used for show. But even so, I would have expected a cheaper cake to be cut up behind the scenes and handed out.

YANBU, that is so mean and odd. I am also foreign, had heard about the cake in party bag thing but have been to several British kid’s parties now and the cake has always been served! Much better idea than shoving a squashed up bit of cake in a bag and wasting all that cling film.

That was a rented cake! Had to go back by 6pm to be rented out to the next party hosting meanies.

Now there is a business idea! Cheaper and less fattening than a real Cake that you pay mega bucks for and actually eat

*icing not using!

No cake at all is odd.

Even if they didn’t want to cut up the fancy cake, I’d expect a cheaper cake to be sliced up and handed out.

They probably hired it to impress. Nothing about kid’s parties would surprise me now.

My guess would be fake cake- iced polystyrene. But yes, pretty stupid not to have a real, undecorated one.

Wth?! How bizarre, definitely not the norm anywhere I think

They are going to be eating cake for a really really long time.

Or more likely, it was a fake but nicely decorated cake.

You may joke.... my child went to a party last year where the cake was a fake cake ... decorated polystyrene with crispie cajes given in party bags instead

It could be a fake cake. I’ve seen one at a party. Basically cardboard covered in intricate icing (think it was a fairy palace or something) however they did have a large party sized tray bake thing cut up into squares for the napkins/bags.

I guess it’s cheaper than paying up to £100+ for a large fancy cake!? Maybe it comes out next year too?

What is the point of fake cake? If we can use other materials of course it'll look good, the point is that it looks fantastic and is edible too!
Seriously, fake cake to me is everything that's wrong with the works at the moment. Style over substance and everything with an eye on fucking Instagram.

Very odd, cake is either served or in party bags

I have done something similar because hosting a party is hectic. Cutting and wrapping up a cake for 30 children takes at least 15 minutes in which time they would have turned feral! Besides I want to enjoy my child's party not stay backstage cutting cake. Having said that I make the cakes myself and just make two cakes the same - or at least so you would think that you had one of the original (e.g. the swirly icing but maybe not a lollipop in each cake portion). The 'show' cake is eaten at home and sliced up and frozen for packed lunches. Much more time efficient during the party and the cake would be the same. I don't do it with smaller parties of say 10 - I just do the one cake.

If you are not going to share it with the guests (either at the party or in the party bag) then why oh why would you display a fancy cake???????

Is the fake cake the new stunt pineapple, then?
Very odd indeed. Another foreigner here who doesn’t really get that cake is often not eaten at parties...

Why would you show people a cake that you don't then feed them Strawberry? That seems very inhospitable.

No, you cut the cake up and offer it to the kids. Chances are they won't be interested, too busy playing. In which case the cake gets wrapped and put in the party bags to go home.