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Table Manners
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Birthday ButcheryHelp! I’m not cut out for cake-cutting. |
Dear Helena,
At birthday parties, it seems to be tradition for the person celebrating his or her big day to be obligated to divvy up and dish out the cake. Frankly, by the time the cake is usually presented, I’ve had more than a few drinks and am quite relaxed. At that juncture, my cake-cutting skills—which are lacking to begin with—leave the once-elegant baked good looking rather like a natural disaster has struck.
Not to sound ungrateful, but I really dislike cutting my own birthday cake, and I generally ask someone else to do it on my behalf. My request, however, is often met with confused stares like I’ve committed some sort of dreadful faux pas, when really all I want to do is enjoy my birthday and allow someone with a little more slicing skill to take a stab at it for the sake of elegance.
My question is this: Why is it tradition for the birthday celebrant to cut the cake, and is it indeed rude to ask that someone else handle it? —No Cutting and Knife Expert
Dear No Cutting and Knife Expert,
Unfortunately there’s no neat historical explanation why the birthday boy or girl is the one to cut the cake. But the symbolism seems similar to when a bride and groom cut their wedding cake: That cut represents them starting a new life together. You’re embarking on a new year.
But, after you’ve made the first cut, it’s perfectly OK to ask someone else to dish up the rest. It’s your birthday and you should do whatever you want. Usually, birthday guests include one or two nurturing types, who enjoy cutting up and handing out cake.
If you’re having your celebration at a restaurant, they’ll likely cut the cake up for you, and charge you a fee, which covers service. Ted Kilpatrick, the manager of Radius in Boston, where the fee is $7 per slice, says: “You’re paying for the dish, the table, the nice presentation. The pastry chef plates each slice with a scoop of ice cream.” The fee also covers lost revenue, explains Julie Sproesser, general manager of Prune in New York: “If they’re bringing dessert, it means we lose the sale at the table. It’s sort of like a wine corkage fee.” Call it a cakeage fee.
Now that we’re on the topic of birthday cakes in public places, I have a few other things to say. If the party takes place in a bar, don’t let the remains of the cake sit around. People will inevitably pick at the frosting, just because it’s there. Pack the cake up after everyone has had his fill. Someone, usually the birthday celebrant, can then enjoy whatever’s left.
Magic relighting candles might be amusing to the birthday celebrant, but it’s not very nice to eat cake that someone has vigorously blown on several times. Go for old-fashioned candles.
Finally, if you’re partying at a bar, consider cupcakes. They’re less festive than a whole cake, but you won’t need to bother with disposable plates and forks. With a cake, you’ll also need to find an empty table to set it on, which can be challenging in a crowded bar. But with cupcakes all you need to do is hand them out, no cutting necessary. And the only cake the birthday celebrant blows on is his or her own.
Table Manners appears every Wednesday. Have a Table Manners question? Email Helena.
Re: the cupcakes: I usually compromise: one smallish layer (4" or 6" round) and the rest in cupcakes. That way my boy gets a decorated cake, and everybody else gets their own portion.
I'm with you. Making a wish and blowing out the candles is one thing, but as the birthday girl I think our friends should cut the cake for us while we relax and sip a lovely cocktail. :)
Leah
The Jew & The Carrot blog
http://www.jcarrot.org
$7 per slice for cake cutting? I have to be honest, I've never heard of the practise of bringing your own cake to a restaurant, never mind having the staff present it. Isn't that kind of insulting to the pastry chef?
I can't imagine forcing the birthday girl or boy to cut his or her own birthday cake. No one's ever made me do it on my birthday, but then again we usually go out to eat for a friend's birthday and tell the waiter to stick a candle in the birthday celebrant's dessert.
mainsqueeze, I think it depends on the restaurant. If I were going to, say, Le Bernardin or Le Cirque, I'd think twice about bringing a Carvel ice cream cake. Then again, "event" restaurants like that ususally ask when you're making the reservation if it's a special occasion for anyone in the party. But if it's a mid-level bistro or something, I wouldn't think twice about bringing a cake (though I might mention it when I made the reservation so the server wouldn't be surprised) and I wouldn't quibble about the $7 per slice for cake cutting since the pastry chef is slicing it and presenting it nicely with little extras like ice cream and fancy sauces.
Are we from the same planet? I have never heard of asking/requiring the person whose birthday is being celebrated to cut their own cake. Plus, I had a good chuckle over the $7 "cakeage" fee. Give me a break!
$7 to cut a slice of cake..... so if you have 10 people, 10 slices..... $70 extra for someone else to slice the cake you've already paid for.
Btw, I have a bridge for sale.....
I once did bring a cake to a place that required a cutting fee. I asked ahead. I had made a very special cake at home for my husband that he requested and that they did not have at the restaraunt.
To my shock, when cake time arrived, they brought out the cake, a knife, and left. So I paid a "cake Cutting" fee, and ended up cutting it myself, anyhow (I didn't make my husband do it on his own birthday, how odd!). I suppose it was more of a $10 "knife rental" fee.
Maybe it depends on the location, but 1) a cake cutting fee is not unusual where I'm from 2) bringing your own cake to a restaurant is not uncommon, especially Asian restaurants (not high-end places though) and 3) I've never heard of the bday gal or guy NOT cutting her/his own cake.
On your birthday you should do what you want. If someone gives you a hard time because you don't want to cut a stupid cake, then they're the ones being rude. A simple, "I've never been a good cake cutter" or "I prefer to leave the sharp objects in the hands of others" should suffice. Otherwise, it's their problem, not yours.
I don't mind a cake cutting fee... but $7 seems a bit steep. Might as well order dessert through the restaurant. If they offered to make a cake and you declined, I'd maybe understand the fee. But a scoop of ice cream and some sauce isn't worth $7, no matter how artfully they put it on a plate. I don't think restaurants should be charging you for a "lost sale" because in large groups, often times only a few desserts are ordered, usually not one per person. After apps, wine, entrees, people are more inclined to just share. Also, there's usually an automatic gratuity involved, so the staff will be taken care of.
I didn't realize cutting a cake could be such a tramatic experience for people. I can't imagine how you would handle walking and chewing gum at the same time.
All I can say is WHO CARES!? Cut it or don't cut it. I have never met anyone who would judge a person either way. In our family and circle of friends the cutting of the cake is such a non-issue that I do not EVER remember being expected by anyone to cut the cake on my birthday. Whomever happens to be standing nearest grabs a knife and starts cutting. Really, are people this pompous?
Azizeh, the cake cutting fee is supposed to be steep. "Might as well order dessert through the restaurant" is exactly the point. The restaurant is doing the customer a favor by letting him or her even bring a cake in the first place; the restaurant's primary goal is to sell food, and the foreign cake is competition. Either serve the cake at home, order dessert from the kitchen, or realize that sometimes we have to pay a premium to get things exactly the way we want them.
PlatypusJ, you're right. You shouldn't expect to bring your own food or beverage into a restaurant without having some kind of financial repercussion. I mean, you could have stayed home.
Platypus, I totally agree. I just think $7 is too steep and I probably wouldn't pay it. Most restaurants that would charge such a high fee for the service probably make a better dessert than any birthday cake you'll find. As I said, it's pretty unlikely that everyone in a party will order dessert anyway, so my issue was with the fee being so high. $3 each, probably fair. But, close to $10 a piece is pretty much just gouging because you can. Water is a "lost" sale if the person isn't ordering wine. Should there be a charge for tap water, as well?
If the question of cutting a cake is a problem--try an alternative such as serving pre-cut pie, ice cream dishes or pizza slices. Perhaps the candles could be put in those. Who says that the person celebrating the birthday has to cut a birthday cake?
$7 is cheap. one place that i worked at charged at lest $ 15 for cutting cake a $25 for corkage fee and you don't want to know what we charged for decorating the place for a wedding.
$15 a slice? B/c that place charges $7 a slice.
"That place" is Radius, one of Boston's most pretentious, where entree pricing tops out at over $45. I wouldn't expect the "cakeage" fee to be nearly so high at a more normal restaurant.
$15 to cut a cake is pretty cheap. You should see how much they charge to cut the cheese. AND they don't even light a match.
Anyone that scoffs at a cake cutting fee does not understand how restaurant business works. If 10 people were charged $7 cakeage fee, they get the pleasure of sitting in there an extra hour for a mere $70 when the restaurant can be seating 10 other people at $70 per person for that hour.
Yeah, I totally understand the high cake-cutting fee. The phrase "you can't have your cake and eat it too" exists for people who want both the dinner in the nice restaurant & the cake from the nice bakery without leaving the nice restaurant first. I mean, they actually *can* have it and eat it too, but at a price. Seems only fair.
As for the who-cuts question, I had no idea this was such a major point of etiquette either way. I don't think I've had a birthday cake since I was old enough to cut one anyway, so maybe that's why. I think "birthday cake" has morphed into "birthday bottle of wine."
I'v never heard of a cake cutting fee in my life! wow.
My family even when growing up have always brought in cake and ice cream to any restaraunt we go to when celebrating someone's B.day and ask if they'll put in their freezer till we ask for it and, they bring out the cake and WE cut the cake and dishout the ice cream problem solved....
i usually end up cutting the birthday cake, not because i am "nurturing" as you say, but rather because most people seem to have a knack of converting cake to soup when they cut it. If i see that the person doing the cutting is capable of handling the job on their own, i am happy to sit down and watch.