How does cake tasting work?

rbcrock

This might be a dumb question - but how exactly do you go about cake tasting?  It would seem to me that you would do a cake tasting BEFORE you book a baker to decide if you like their cakes or not... is this correct?  I also don't know if they're usually free or not.  I just don't want to to call up and sound like a moron or be caught off gaurd if they expect me to pay or something.

Thanks!

SaraAndrew2010

We tasted cakes at 3 bakeries.  At each place we called up and made an appointment for the cake tastings.  None of the bakeries charged us for the tasting and there was no commitment to book.  At 2 of the places they brought out small pieces of their standard cake flavors as well as little cups of different icings and fillings.  At the 3rd baker, we picked out 3 flavors of cake we were interested in and she made us a mini-cake of each.

LauraT25

In my area, some places have free tastings but it's not uncommon for them to  charge.  If you do have  to pay a fee, it goes toward your payment if you end up booking.  I think it's usually a smallish fee, though, like $10-$25 for up to four people.  I recommend tasting before booking, though sometimes brides book based on good reviews (here or elsewhere) or previous experience from other events, and the tasting is simply to pick flavors.

tldh

Our baker brought cupcakes in nine different flavors and five flavors of filling for us to pick from.  She didn't charge and insisted we take them all home even though we knew from the start we wanted a white almond cake.

topchef33

The place we got our cake from allowed to taste 2 flavors. They made a 6" round cake and we got to try both flavors, then we took the rest home and had some of our family try it.

I don't know if we could do a second tasting of other flavors....we probably would have had to pay.

We already knew we wanted to use that bakery though. And our cake is going to be a combo of the 2 cakes we tried.

fallbride1109

We scheduled 3 tastings but stopped at #2.  In my area it's common to do several so bakers know you probably won't be booking at the tasting.  They are free where I live and like the PP, they bring out samples of all their flavors and fillings and you try them all and are VERY full when you leave!  Most bakers have certain times allowed for tastings and you can call or sometimes even book them online.