AI bake at home and am doing wedding cupcakes for a friend as my gift (can't charge and become official in Wisconsin yet). The bride and groom would like to taste some cupcakes to get an idea on flavors and stuff. I had a couple questions on the best way to do this. How many flavors should I have? Do the cupcake liners matter? What is the easiest way to bake small amounts of cupcakes? Thanks in advance for your help!

AWell I'm always gonna recommed the ultimate vanilla cupcake flavor....found on Cupcakeproject.com. they have several different flowers on there but so far I've only tried the vanilla one it was way yummy...even my very pickey daughter loves them. Now I've read that you really don't want to give the guest more than a couple flavors to chose from just for the simple reason that guest than think they should be trying one of each flavor or they feel like there missing out and you don't want to be cooking 4 different cupcakes for each guess ( that's just something that I read in a post on here) that doesn't mean you can't make 4 different flavors for the couple to try just make a point of telling them that you only want to serve 2 different flavors at the wedding and why than narrow it down to the 2 flavors they like most. Yes yes yes the liners matter! There was just a thread on here about transparent cupcake liners and it looking bad , the transparent look comes from the liner not being greese proof and the oil from the batter sipping through the liner and making it look bad. If the couple is willing to pay the added expense cupcakes in a greese proof liner in there wedding color with cupcake wraps around them So Pretty but expensive. If you only do the one liner make sure they are greese proof just so it looks nice. This is just my taste and opion

AOh rerread your post and see that the cupcakes are a gift. Well you have to go with what you can afford

Ask the bride and groom to each name two or three flavours they would like to taste.For icing, make vanilla,. chocolate, cream cheese, and no more.

Make their cake list plus maybe one or two more ideas that you would offer in future.  

Mix a single batch each of white and chocolate cake batters.

Split up the white batter, you can then bake 2-3 cupcakes of several flavours by adding (for example) orange oil, lemon oil, lime oil, mixed pumpkin-pie spices, pineapple flavour, coconut flavour and coconut, strawberry flavour, instant coffee.  Use the LorAnn tiny bottles for whatever they ask for.

If you have to make red velvet, add a tiny amount of cocoa and some red colour to some of the white batter.

From the chocolate batter, you can make chocolate, marble (using some white), snowflake (grated white chocolate) and mocha (instant coffee).

Make notes.  This exercise will be useful to you when you get licensed.

For the tasting, put cupcakes separate from small heaps of icings on a plate for each of them.

OK so now there is the matter of nice papers.  Get the bride and groom to buy them.  They are getting the cake, icing and decorating work as a gift--that's PLENTY.

Ahttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&biw=360&bih=300&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=purple+shiney+cupcakes&oq=purple+shiney+cupcakes&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3...432826.471874.0.473183.36.30.0.0.0.6.248.3460.7j21j1.29.0.crnk_mobile_unfiltered..0.0...1.1j4.Mb_yoJ6Sdzo#i=163 I obviously don't know the color of the wedding but every time I see these I think how pretty they are If you do a Google search and type in wedding cupcakes and look at the images there is a huge array to look at

Thank you so much for all your advice!!

And the color is purple, so nice suggestion :)

AI would say make mini cupcakes. This way, they can see what it would look like without having to waste to much if the ingredients. Also, I would use a plain white cupcake liner and have a mini picture album all the cupcake liners you know you can have accessible.

I know you wrote that you are not charging them for the cupcakes, but I would try to get them to at least cover the ingredients. If not, you are putting your money in to make these cupcakes which include materials, ingredients, and lets not forget the labor.

I would definitely tell them that it is a "one" flavor cupcake. If they can't decide, then tell them anything extra is exactly that, "extra". Try to limit the flavor tasting to a minimum of 4. Anything more and they will have a hard time choosing, or be full if you are taste tasting with regular sized cupcakes. Hence, why I hinted at making mini cupcakes :)