Paying for cake tastings

I'm guessing from the sticker shock that you have absolutely no idea how labour intensive making and transporting wedding cakes are.

First, the price of many of the ingredients to make cakes have gone up in the past few years, butter, milk, sugar and flour to name a few. I don't know if you are having fondant or buttercream, but both are a bitch to make and set properly.

Second, decorating your cake takes time and expertise. If you don't believe me, cakewrecks.com has a whole wedding cake section.

Third, transportation. A good baker will make sure your cake is properly transported and set up.

Now please bitch about the price of your cake for 150 people.

We looked at a few cake places and some charged around $30 and others didn't charge anything. We never made it to the ones that charged because our second free tasting was amazing and we went with her. Our cake is 3 tier for 100 people and is $600 with added $50 delivery fee. I am not a fan of fondant so it will all be buttercream and here is our inspiration pics.

I think our baker is slightly on the higher side but the cake was so delicious I could not stop my taste buds from screaming YES!! Hahaha

We were not charged for either of our 2 cake tastings. At one we were able to try 4 cakes and 4 fillings and the buttercream, and at the other 5 cakes and 5 fillings and 4 buttercreams.

I'd skip any tasting that requires you to pay for it, personally. Usually you can buy cupcakes from those places, so rather than pay $30 can you just buy a couple cupcakes and taste their fillings that way?

We did two tastings, both free. One was a place that just had us taste the generic flavors (white, chocolate, and carrot) and a couple fillings; the other place had about 12 different combos of cake and filling (they were soooo good).

I'm okay with paying for a tasting if you get to select specific flavors you want to try and they'll make them for you, but if they're choosing whatever they happen to have on hand then it's ridiculous.

And they're expensive not even necessarily because of the decorations and the time it takes but because making a cake that doesn't lean or crumble, and survives being transported across town, is hard. I still can't quite get all my cakes at home to stop leaning to the side a bit...lol.

JessieJV, cakewrecks is my absolute fave. I cry laughing every time.

Trish, my cake tasting included 3 people for free but to add any additional person was $10. We tried 15 flavors with various fillings. I think everyone else covered why the cake itself is so expensive. I would look at Publix if you have them in your area, or other grocery stores, they often make good cakes for less.

If your city has big bridal/wedding shows, that's a good way to be able to do multiple tastings just for the price of admission to the show. That's where we found the baker that we hired. I noticed she also does the occasional open house where samples are free and if you book at the open house a discount is involved, so you could check into something like that if you are trying to save on tasting costs. Wedding cakes are definitely pricey, but you're paying for their art! Typically they are priced per serving, so just like with most anything else where the wedding is concerned...you can save money by cutting your guest list! Simpler designs should also save you $$ on the cake as well.

A bakery I'm scoping out charges $35 because they don't belive that cupcakes or frozen, previously baked slices are representative of an actual wedding cake.

Instead they make you a fresh cake for you to try. If you sign with them, then the $35 is deducted from your order. It's essentially free.

This is more than fair.

Our cake is included in our venue package and we get a free cake tasting for up to 4 people. We are scheduled to go Jan 7th and i cant wait!!! My venue had an open house this past weekend and she had some mini cupcake samples i tried the red velvet and DH tried carrot cake both were to die for!!!

The cake place we booked charged $40 dollars for our cake tasting. However we got to taste 6 full size pieces of cake and they boxed it up for us to take home. And their pieces of cake are hugeeeee. We took the leftovers to dinner with my family that night and it was dessert for all 7 of us. Also the $40 dollars went towards our cost for the wedding cake. So very worth it to me.

This is the one thing I am regretting from doing the wedding the way we are. No cake tasting. ;_;

We have 3 cake tastings lined up all from great local bakeries and none of them charge for the tasting. We're estimating our cake/cupcake cake to be around $500- $550 for 100 people

We tasted with 2 bakeries. 1 would only charge us the $50 tasting fee if we tasted at their bakery, but was free if we just took it home (which we did). The other place charged us $25.

At the $50 one, we were only supposed to get 3 tastings, but we convinced them to give us for 4 since we were planning on ordering more than 3 flavors.

At the $25 one, we were given their 5 most popular flavors at the tasting. However, we were able to pick up tastings of other options for free later in the week (we tried 3 others that she didn't have prepared when we originally tasted).

In both cases, the tasting fee would be subtracted from our final bill if we booked them.

We weren't charged for the cake tastings. We tried 3 different vendors. But this may or may not have to do with the cake being included in our catering package. And with that said, no idea what the cake would have costed if we it purchased separately.

I think the $550 is a deal for a cake, depending on the size.

We are planning on a 3-tier cake, the one pictured, and it will probably eat up between $1200-$1400. It's also been the only design DF and I have both loved hands down, no compromise needed, AND it's being made by Disney (getting married at Disney World) so that ups the price significantly, I'm sure.

Thank you for this post and especially JesseJV for sharing so much info!!

We paid for $2 a slice for each cake we wanted to try, so about $10 total. Another vendor we are considering for our cake in April is requiring a $50 charge that would be deducted from the deposit if we booked them.

Jessie, thank you for posting about cakewrecks. I am cracking up at my desk over these terrible cakes.

I don't think it's too uncommon to pay for a tasting. I haven't contacted a baker yet but I paid $25 for a tasting with my caterer. Since we're booking them, they're taking $25 off the total price.

@Millie, Cakewrecks is a rabbit hole you may never come back from.

I'm by no means a professional baker, but I do have several friends who are pastry chefs and I do help them out from time to time. I also come from a family of professional bakers who used to make wedding cakes.

We were not charged for the cake testing we had.

Just an FYI for those discussing not liking having to pay for tastings. I work at a bakery and there have been numerous times where we set up a cake tasting - as in cut cubes of cake and add our fillings and buttercream in cute little dishes and add it all to a plate to make it look presentable - and they are a no show. We don't charge for tastings. Obv it was no problem for the customer to not show.

I personally like the idea of charging for a tasting and putting it towards your bill if you do end up buying a cake.

But yes, just to add, making cakes take foreverrrrrr!