The Costco Cake Ordering Tip That Will Make Your Celebration A Cinch

When you want to feed a lot of people for less money, it makes sense to shop at Costco, especially when you are looking for crowd-pleasing baked goods. Popular sweet treats like the 4.5-pound Italian-inspired Tiramisu cheesecake and the Tuxedo Chocolate Mousse cake are luxurious year-round Costco bakery finds that are huge hits amongst frequent Costco shoppers. And when you want something even bigger or more personalized, you can turn to Costco's custom cakes. A half sheet cake from Costco is slated to serve up to 48 people, while the full sheet will happily supply up to 96 people with a tasty slice of cake. And if you're worried about cutting the pieces too big or too small resulting in portions that aren't the same for all your guests, there's a neat cake feature that the company offers: cake scoring.

Scoring ensures that you get all the servings out of the cake that are promised, because each piece you cut along the scored lines will be more or less equal. For rectangular Costco cakes, that means the decorator actually draws on cutting lines in frosting, then creates a lovely rose in a variety of colors (typically red, yellow, and blue) inside each scored section. For its 10-inch round cakes, which feed 16 people, the decorator uses frosting to make a series of radial lines from the center point, then adds a rose onto each slice. 

While the Costco cake ordering system is kind of outdated (there is still no online ordering, either), it's what has worked for the company for years. You begin by locating the cake ordering kiosk in your Costco warehouse, typically near the cake fridge. Fill out a Sheet Cake Order Form, marking all your customizations including the size, shape, and flavor of your cake. Then, under "Choose One Cake Design," you will place a mark next to "Scored," on the second row, second column (yup, it's an option on the ordering form). After that, fill in your member information, and you're done. 

The scored cakes are all decorated the same way — unless you want to decorate the cake yourself. That's right, you can request that your bakery score the cake but leave it otherwise plain, so that you can add your own embellishments like cupcake toppers, sprinkles, and edible florals — the sky's the limit. Where it says "Specify Rose Colors" on the order form, you can write in something like "Scored — just lines, no roses." Since it's actually saving the decorators work, they are very likely going to honor the request. Although, you'll want to be sure to include your phone number under member information, just in case the employees can't accommodate your request and want to notify you before your pick up date.