How Many Cookies Should You Order for an Event?

There are two ways to get cookie numbers wrong at an event. One is running out early, which turns polite guests into people who will remember it. The other is over-ordering so wildly that you are pressing cookies into everyone's hands at the door like a nan who cannot let anyone leave empty-handed. The middle is easier to hit than the panic suggests.

Start here. If cookies are one of several desserts, plan on one to two per person. If they are the main sweet, two to three. For a grazing table people pick at all night, three to four. For favours or take-home treats, two to three each. When you are torn, round up, always. Cookies keep for days, so extras are just breakfast, whereas an empty tray at nine o'clock is a genuine hosting tragedy.

From there it moves with the event. Weddings usually want two to three per guest across the night, plus another two to three each if the cookies are also favours, because guests will absolutely take a handful for the drive home and deny it later. Office functions run on grazing rather than sitting down, so two to three a head handles most morning teas and launches, more if it drags into an all-dayer, because colleagues have range. Birthday parties with cake need only one to two per guest. Kids eat fewer than you would think and drop more than you would believe, so one to two each in smaller sizes, and accept that some are going in a pocket.

If you would rather not eyeball it, multiply your guest count by the per-person figure, then add fifteen percent for big appetites, late RSVPs and the one bloke who takes four. A 50-person office event as a shared dessert lands around 145, so you order 150 and look like you planned it.

One last tip: spread the order across a few flavours instead of one kind by the tray. Roughly one flavour per 25 to 30 cookies keeps the table interesting, covers the fussy and the adventurous, and photographs far better, which matters the second a phone comes out. Sort dietary needs early too, so nobody has to do the sad hover at the dessert table.

Tell us your numbers and the type of do, and we will size it, suggest a flavour split and handle the presentation. Full range on the Catering page.