Pay for cake tasting?

The bakery that we went with does charge a fee similar to that. However, we were able to try their cakes for free by going to a wedding show in our area. We were able to try probably 5 flavors from them like that.

I've heard that's normal - it's kind of like proving you're serious. Plus they have to use materials and time for you, which would be wasted if you didn't use them.

That's pretty normal. Ome of our tastings was free because we only requested four flavors and the cakes were small. If we had wanted to try a ton of stuff it would've been $5 per cake. Another bakery was $10 per cake but they were pretty huge. Either way the charges would've applied to our total cost if we booked with them.

We only met with one bakery and our tasting was free, but I can understand why a bakery would charge since they have to pay for the supplies, labour, and time for someone to meet with you. If they let you apply it to the cost of the cake when you book, then that sounds pretty fair to me.

Double post

I had a baker who wanted me to drive an hour and a half to her and pay like $40 for the tasting. She makes the MOST magnificent cakes, but I wasn't about to pay that much for a tasting.

The bakery we decided on gave us a free tasting - three kinds of cake and cake balls. The other two local bakeries did free tastings for the bride and groom of two kinds of cake but it was like $5 if parents wanted to come. Two of the ones in the big city wanted $10 a person but both said just to see them at a bridal show and get to taste it ALL for free. All the other bakeries we tasted their cakes at a bridal show for free.

Weird. Mine was free.

The bridal show I went to which was one of the biggest in town only had one bakery there .... I was soo confused. But good to see it's normal But I'n not trying to invest $100 to taste cakes if I try 3-4 bakeries out

I had to pay a $100 deposit to "save the date" which will be applied to our cake cost. The baker won't even schedule a tasting until you have paid this.

Guess it depends on where you live. where I live there's so much competition I think they know if they tried to charge you for a tasting you'd just go to the many other places. where I live it's not that common at all to try and charge.

seems that it's becoming normal in some areas and I understand their reasoning, but I know what the cost is for those materials. and if they care more about not wasting their time and materials rather than possibly getting my business, then I'm not going to bother with them. I'll go with the many other places that realize that I don't have to prove how serious I am.

seems to be a more typical practice for places that feel you don't have another choice. guess it's like most things. if the market will tolerate it, then that's what they will do.

a while back I was with a friend who needed a wedding cake. she was given a cupcake that tasted like it was 3 days old and was covered with stuff that tasted exactly like my recipe of the stuff I grease my pans with! we set up a signal for if she was please or not and she wasn't. I asked if they had any other samples and they were appalled. told them why I considered our sample unacceptable and was told that we needed to just book the cake because they were the only bakery in town (when I lived in another state) so I told them that I'd bake the wedding cake myself before I'd let her serve their stuff.

which is exactly what was done. we were going to serve cupcakes if the cake didn't work out. that is how I started cake making

Btw- for 25-30 dollars, couldn't you just buy a whole cake from them to see if they are any good?

Our baker charged us $25 for a tasting and it was 6 mini cakes with different flavor fillings and butter cream or fondant covered. I thought it was fair. And it was credited toward our balance.

We didn't pay for our cake tasting, which was attended by myself, my mom, my sister and my nephew. In fact they even gave me an extra piece of the flavor I wanted for the "cutting" layer so that FH could taste it.

I think ours was free, but then again we ordered from them, so they might have charged us for the tasting if we hadn't. We got to try 15 different flavors. OMG, it was nearly impossible to choose just three.

Standard here.

Ours was free for 2 people. Extra for each extra person.

The bakery we went to gave us a free tasting. We ended up going with them, but there are definitely bakeries (and good ones) that will give you a tasting for free.

We went to three and all were free!

I went on weddingful and the bakery charging $35 had a voucher for a free tasting and consultation so i'm just using that. haha