I am fairly new to this and just booked a wedding cake and the bride has requested to try some different samples of both frosting and cake. How do you go about doing this when you don't have a huge bakery. I don't want to more than necessary if there is a trick to doing this. Any advice would be great!!

THanks
Shanadi Chamberlin

You could make mini cupcakes in a couple of different flavors and then freeze the extra's. The next time you have a tasting you'll just pull those out and let them thaw and then stick them on a plate.

I also heard from a lady on here that she would put her frosting in ice cube tray and then freeze it. When it was time she would pop the icing out of the tray (just like ice) and then put it on a plate. It just melts back to the way your icing should be.

Now some cake bakers will specifically bake whatever flavor the bride and groom are wanting to try. And others just say, you can sample what I have on hand. As IndyDebi says, "If you like like my white cake, you'll love my lemon cake. It's just like like my white, but it tastes like lemon." (Only she says it much better).

So you just have to decide what approach you want to take. It sounds like the freezing and sampling what you have on hand might work best for you right now. But that's just my opinion.

I include sampling any 2 cakes and 2 fillings with the booking of a cake. They get 2 cupcakes of each flavor and 1- 2oz. cup of each filling.

Anything more than that costs $25 for each additional sample (2 cupcakes of 1 flavor and 1 cup of filling) It's really just to cover my costs...

The extra cupcakes *never* go to waste. I ice them and box them up and give them to people, my bank, hair salon, ups guy, florists... I do try to encourage people to sample the same thing other people are trying if they don't know what they want. hah.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that some people just outright charge $25 for sampling. And then if the customer books the cake, they will put the $25 towards the cake.

Another option to cupcakes (not all my cake recipes work as cupcakes so for me this is a bad example of what my cakes taste like)

So I bake a 9" square with extra batter (usually from whatever orders I have that week). Bake, cool, cut into 9 pieces and freeze the entire thing. When you need a sample just pull out 1 or 2 squares, they defrost very fast and they're still moist. (I have to credit Indydebi for this idea though, I was baking round samples until she mentioned the square and it does make more sense, so thanks Debi!)

I'm the lady who freezes her icings and fillings in ice cube trays (I do vacuum seal the entire tray with my food saver to keep other odors/flavors out) It works great.

I offer the basics chocolate cake, white cake.....butter cream icing, SMBC, and a fondant sample, with 4 or 5 fillings.

Remember the point of a tasting is for the client to sample your baking abilities........not every single flavor that you offer.

Good luck!

P.S. If you bake a lot the Food Saver is a great investment. I use this thing every day........not just for my baked goods either. I have really cut down on the amount of food that I waste because everything stays fresh for so much longer.

LOL.....that's OK, it's hard to keep track of all us "crazy cake ladies" I always remember people by their avater then when they change the pic I get all confused!

when you freeze the IMBC or SMBC in the ice cube trays, does that thaw well too, or does it need remixing a little??

Sorry, I was away from my laptop. Yes the SMBC needs to be whipped a bit, I use one of those mini wisks and it comes out fine.