First Wedding Cake Tasting - How? And Recipes?
Business By allcupcakedout Updated 25 Apr 2013 , 1:43am by vgcea
I have my first wedding cake tasting on Sunday. Any suggestions on how to do it? And what about flavors to bring? I have struggled to find good recipes that would hold up under fondant. What recipes/flavors do you use for wedding cakes? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
I have my first 2 tastings scheduled for May 4th. I am not sure how to conduct it either. I am actually letting them choose 3 flavors of cake, filling, and icing. I'm not sure how to present the flavors....as cupcakes with little cups for mixing and matching the fillings/icings, or as assembled pieces of cake. I hope some tasting-experienced people reply to this string.
SImply because this is the business forum, i have to suggest that you should have your recipes down pat and be confident in executing and delivering a reliable product before you should be even considering conducting a tasting and selling yourself to a bride to provide what will be the likely be the most important cake of her life.
When I was starting, I baked, decorate, and tested cakes that were gifted to family and friends. The first time I did a wedding cake it was for a friend who knew with full disclosure that it would be my first and she was just covering the cost of supplies. After going through that process, i realized that I didn't know what i didn't know and worked to fix what i needed before I ever met with a 'real' client. In the mean time i did a lot of baking and a lot of practice on cakes that weren't so emotionally charged and important.
If this wedding cake is for a friend who knows that you are in the beginning stages (and I am gently inferring that from your question) of producing wedding cakes, you probably want to check out the WASC doctored box mixes and perhaps push a buttercream finish if you aren't comfortable with doing fondant cakes. A wedding cake is not the time to work on your learning curve and you don't want to sell what you aren't sure you can deliver (as the website Cake Wrecks has taught us all).
As for your flavors, I provide a few of my light flavors, my two chocolate flavors and a variety of butter creams and fillings for sampling and putting together in different combinations. There are many threads on here (search google for wedding cake tastings and cake central) with years of responses on the different ways tastings are done.
ASeriously, this was very well written:
Original message sent by lorieleann
SImply because this is the business forum,[B] i have to suggest that you should have your recipes down pat and be confident in executing and delivering a reliable product before you should be even considering conducting a tasting and selling yourself to a bride to provide what will be the likely be the most important cake of her life. [/B]
When I was starting, I baked, decorate, and tested cakes that were gifted to family and friends. The first time I did a wedding cake it was for a friend who knew with full disclosure that it would be my first and she was just covering the cost of supplies. [B]After going through that process, i realized that I didn't know what i didn't know and worked to fix what i needed before I ever met with a 'real' client.[/B] In the mean time i did a lot of baking and a lot of practice on cakes that weren't so emotionally charged and important.
If this wedding cake is for a friend who knows that you are in the beginning stages (and I am gently inferring that from your question) of producing wedding cakes, you probably want to check out the WASC doctored box mixes and perhaps push a buttercream finish if you aren't comfortable with doing fondant cakes. [B]A wedding cake is not the time to work on your learning curve and you don't want to sell what you aren't sure you can deliver (as the website Cake Wrecks has taught us all). [/B]
As for your flavors, I provide a few of my light flavors, my two chocolate flavors and a variety of butter creams and fillings for sampling and putting together in different combinations. There are many threads on here (search google for wedding cake tastings and cake central) with years of responses on the different ways tastings are done.
AFor some, the consultation is an art form. It's one of my favorite parts of the whole business.
Lots of people do things differently. Some offer cupcakes, some small cakes, some slices of cake with cups of frosting & filling. As long as they get to taste a few flavors it doesn't really matter the form you use.
What's most important is getting to know your client & allowing them to get to know you.
SImply because this is the business forum, i have to suggest that you should have your recipes down pat and be confident in executing and delivering a reliable product before you should be even considering conducting a tasting and selling yourself to a bride to provide what will be the likely be the most important cake of her life.
When I was starting, I baked, decorate, and tested cakes that were gifted to family and friends. The first time I did a wedding cake it was for a friend who knew with full disclosure that it would be my first and she was just covering the cost of supplies. After going through that process, i realized that I didn't know what i didn't know and worked to fix what i needed before I ever met with a 'real' client. In the mean time i did a lot of baking and a lot of practice on cakes that weren't so emotionally charged and important.
If this wedding cake is for a friend who knows that you are in the beginning stages (and I am gently inferring that from your question) of producing wedding cakes, you probably want to check out the WASC doctored box mixes and perhaps push a buttercream finish if you aren't comfortable with doing fondant cakes. A wedding cake is not the time to work on your learning curve and you don't want to sell what you aren't sure you can deliver (as the website Cake Wrecks has taught us all).
As for your flavors, I provide a few of my light flavors, my two chocolate flavors and a variety of butter creams and fillings for sampling and putting together in different combinations. There are many threads on here (search google for wedding cake tastings and cake central) with years of responses on the different ways tastings are done.
lorieleann you said it so well! Love your gentle way of giving information! 
SImply because this is the business forum, i have to suggest that you should have your recipes down pat and be confident in executing and delivering a reliable product before you should be even considering conducting a tasting and selling yourself to a bride to provide what will be the likely be the most important cake of her life.
When I was starting, I baked, decorate, and tested cakes that were gifted to family and friends. The first time I did a wedding cake it was for a friend who knew with full disclosure that it would be my first and she was just covering the cost of supplies. After going through that process, i realized that I didn't know what i didn't know and worked to fix what i needed before I ever met with a 'real' client. In the mean time i did a lot of baking and a lot of practice on cakes that weren't so emotionally charged and important.
If this wedding cake is for a friend who knows that you are in the beginning stages (and I am gently inferring that from your question) of producing wedding cakes, you probably want to check out the WASC doctored box mixes and perhaps push a buttercream finish if you aren't comfortable with doing fondant cakes. A wedding cake is not the time to work on your learning curve and you don't want to sell what you aren't sure you can deliver (as the website Cake Wrecks has taught us all).
As for your flavors, I provide a few of my light flavors, my two chocolate flavors and a variety of butter creams and fillings for sampling and putting together in different combinations. There are many threads on here (search google for wedding cake tastings and cake central) with years of responses on the different ways tastings are done.
You are a much better woman than me because I couldn't have said this so graciously.
allcupcakedout, I visited your blog and saw your great talent! Your cupcakes are beautiful and I can understand your excitement. But having questions answered here will never make up for the lack of experience in large cakes, which are a different set of skills. I hope you do pursue learning this part of the baking industry; but as others have posted, it's best to learn and gain experience before taking orders.
I've done quite a few cakes. Most of them fondant covered. I guess you can say I'm still a beginner because I've only been doing this for about 3 years. She is a friend and knows I haven't done a wedding cake before. All she wants is something simple... white fondant covered cake with different sizes of silver dragees along the bottom of each tier. I would not have accepted it if I wasn't comfortable doing it. I have turned down quite a few in the past because I wasn't comfortable. I've just never done a tasting and didn't know how people do them when it's just a single tasting. That's all I was asking and what the popular cake flavors were because when I asked, all she told me was she didn't know and she is a chocolate person.
So back to the question at hand, anyone have suggestions on how to do a single cake tasting? And what are your most popular wedding cake flavors?
A
Original message sent by DeliciousDesserts
For some, the consultation is an art form. It's one of my favorite parts of the whole business.
Lots of people do things differently. Some offer cupcakes, some small cakes, some slices of cake with cups of frosting & filling. As long as they get to taste a few flavors it doesn't really matter the form you use.
What's most important is getting to know your client & allowing them to get to know you.
If you have a specific question, I can give a more detailed answer.
Chocolate and vanilla are always the most popular for weddings, although I occasionally have a lemon, carrot, red velvet, or french vanilla tier.
I'm going to assume you are a hobby baker (like me), not a business. Single tastings can be very expensive and time consuming when you're talking multiple cake flavors, fillings, and icings. I've done several weddings for friends and not one has asked for a tasting. They know that they are getting a free wedding cake (I can't legally charge) and they have either tasted my cake in the past or they trust that it will be good. Honestly I know brides want "the experience" but if they know you are just a hobby baker (i.e you don't have extra cake just sitting around waiting for a tasting) I think it's a bit off-putting for them to expect a tasting. If you have the extra time and money to do a single tasting, then DeliciousDesserts has given you a good starting point. I've offered it to a couple, and they happily obliged, but it was a lot of work and pretty expensive. Now I just give them a list of flavors they want for their wedding and they can choose. I won't do a single tasting anymore.
A simple google search yielded many posts in which different cakers explained how they do theirs including info on free vs charging, baker's choice vs client's requests on flavors. Cupcakes vs whole cakes vs cake pieces. Even threads on how they set up.
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