Cake Tasting Tips

Hello lovelies! I just had the most wonderful weekend, doing the one thing wedding planners consider “perks of the job” – cake tasting!!

 

this gorgeous cake was from Brittany and Scott’s lovely pink and white wedding

In the entirety of the wedding scheme, I don’t really think of the cake as a really big deal – I only know that it actually affects the wedding if it’s bad. All the weddings I’ve gone to have had a cake in some form or another, ranging from something I wouldn’t feed to kids at a birthday party, to cake so good I had to sneak back to claim another piece (or two… don’t judge).

So when it came to my cake, I knew the design would be more important than the taste – almost like an extra prop you can eat.

That is….

until I read the cake tasting menus at the two bakeries we were planning to visit.

The people who come up with these amazing pairings should be made aware that I couldn’t get through more than a few flavors without salivating. And chocolate is really my dessert of choice over cake.

A few examples for your viewing pleasure:

• Brown sugar cake with chocolate mousse buttercream
• Lemon vanilla bean cake with raspberry meringue
• Blueberry cake with lemon cream cheese frosting

How can you not want cake after that?

I got to dig in with Chris and Yelena (fiance and coordinator, respectively) at both places and totally enjoyed myself. It was a completely decadent day!

this amazing cake creation was only one of many gorgeous decorations at Kat + Mike’s Wedding

Here the wise things I learned after my wonderfully sugary day:

• Do tastings at more than one location – Bakeries completely understand this, and won’t push you to make a decision on the day of your tasting.
• Try to meet someone who will be directly handling your cake or its design – at one of our locations, we not only had our entire tasting with the owner and designer, but we powwowed about every option we had available. Knowing we were talking to the person in charge gave us confidence that we wouldn’t have any surprises after booking.
• Ask about cake stands and displays – most bakeries rent out their cake stands for a small fee. Not having an extra rental charge along with your linens and could save you some dough.

 Stephanie and John’s giant white cake was elegant and traditional: just like their wedding day!

• Have pictures or a clear idea of your design before you go – whoever you taste with will be interested in your wedding style. A really intricate or grand design could affect the price they charge you, and you don’t want to be disappointed with a bill larger than your initial quote.
• Know your budget – A baker can work with your bottom line and offer alternatives. If you have a large guest count and a small cake budget, you can have them make a smaller decorated cake, and serve the rest as sheet cake in the same flavor.

From the fiance:

• Be sure to mix flavors, especially if they don’t prepare a custom tasting. The predetermined tasting samples can be a bit boring, because they are tried and true. You’ll never know if Passion Fruit filling will go with Spice cake unless you mix them yourself. (he didn’t actually do this, but we did mix lemon, raspberry meringue, and vanilla cake!)
• I recommend eating a breakfast before you start – there’s nothing worse than crashing from a sugar-high halfway through the day. (we all got really silly and tired toward the end of the day!)

And that’s all our advice!!

Good luck with your cake adventures, and taste away!!

xoxo – Morgan Elizabeth