I have a tasting this wednesday. The bride wants to taste chocolate and marble. She is living in California, and her mom is coming to the tasting.

The pictures she sent me look like fondant cakes. She doesn't want fondant, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it's due to the price. I explained that the ultra smooth look comes from fondant, and although I can get it smooth with buttercream, it won't have that "porcelain" look. So to help her decide, I've promised to do a small square cake iced in buttercream and decorated with dots like her picture, so she can see if it's smooth enough.

Tastings are priced ($15), and the cost taken off the final price of the cake if they book with me.

Now my issue....

Do I make a 6in cake? (I don't have a 6in square pan, do they make those?) Or should I go smaller, and maybe make an 8in square and cut it into 4 smaller squares and freeze the rest?

Sorry this is so long.

bumping myself

Would it be easier to frost an 8" than a 4" cake, especially a square one? What do you usually do for your tastings?

Yes, they do make 6 inch square pans. I have the ML ones and I love them!

I'd go with slicing the cake into 1/4ths and frosting. Just do a really good thin crumbcoat to catch the mess!

In my gallery I did 3 layer "mini" cakes with 3 fillings. Lots of work, but the bride was SUPER impressed! (I really like to pamper my brides. Word of mouth = more sales = $$$!)

HTH,
--Knox--

Thanks, guys, you were really helpful. Guess I'll go with the mini cake idea. Then I'll have some left for another tasting or just practice cakes!

This will be my first tasting. I'm crossing my fingers and diving in....hope I don't hit my noggin' on the bottom.

Oh, congratulations on your first tasting! I too just had my first tasting. I made the bride a 6" round double layer filled with raspberry filling and a piped pearl border. I did add a couple of my fondant roses (I have extra's stored away) on the top of her cake. I charged $15. She also wants a "smooth" like fondant cake but doesn't want fondant because of the taste. She was impressed at how smoothed I got my cake and loved the flavor and texture! She actually took it home and shared it with her family at a family dinner.
Jacqui

Let us know how the tasting goes, please!

I will! It's Wednesday at 3pm, but I'll let you know how it went!

you can do the cake and cut into quarters...freezing doesn't really harm the cake and you will have a little something something to pull out for last minute orders..

you can really impress someone by throwing one of those mini cakes on top to give them a "tiered" look...or keep them for carving...

Whatever you do decide to do, wishing you loads of luck on your tasting and may whe book with you!

I got my cake done for the tasting, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I got the frosting pretty smooth, and the corners are pretty good, I think.......not perfect, but it is my first square cake. I added 2 extra flowers I had sitting around doing nothing, just to jazz it up some for the bride's mom and future MIL. I put it on a nice china plate and my nice cake stand. I plan to have coffee available, too. It's one layer chocolate, one layer marble, with white chocolate buttercream.

I'm thinking of hosting an open tasting (advertised in the paper), where I would make cakes of each of the flavors I'm commonly doing and cut them into maybe 1-inch pieces, and lay them out along with dishes of the various filling flavors, and dishes of the various icings. That way each bride can try out different flavor combinations and look at photos of work I've done already. Should I charge a small admission? I like the idea someone had about taking the admission fee off the cost of a booking (to prevent people coming just for free food?).

If it goes well I could make it a monthly event???

I had thought of doing that myself but since I'm not licensed I decided against it. If I were you I would definetly charge a fee to help cover your costs and like you said, to discourage the "freebies". Once a month might be a bit much but maybe you could have them seasonally, say around the Holidays, Spring, and Fall?
Jacqui

delights-

That is a fabulous idea!! If you try it, let us know how it goes. I might want to try that as well. It would give me an excuse to pull out the nice china, too.

I worried that once a month might be a lot, but I'm in the process of helping a caterer friend open an event facility (where I'd be the cake lady!) and it would be good advertising for the facility, and for me too. We are in a medium-sized market (town of about 65,000 +/-) but a greater 4-state area with not a lot around us except people. Might start out with once every 3 months and see what kind of turnout we get.

It's a few months down the road yet but I will definitely let you all in on how it goes!

I emailed this bride to give her some info about the reception hall (her mom asked if I would call them to find out if they require licensed bakers) and to say I thought the tasting went well. I also emailed her a pic of the tasting cake.

I still haven't heard from her, and it's been over a week, almost 2. Wonder what I did wrong? They just couldn't say enough nice things about the cake.

What's got me concerned is I have another tasting tomorrow, and I'm hoping to avoid whatever problem might exist. But I guess if I don't know what it is, I have to just cross my fingers.

I'm sure all went well if you impressed the MIL and the mom. Some times people just are not in a big hurry to get back to the cake decorator. You'll probly get a call soon, your cake looked great and it sounds like it tasted good too!

Since it has been 2 weeks, why not give her a call and mention to her that you have that date penciled in for her, however you have gotton another call for the same date, and before you made a commitment you would like to give her the first opportunity for that date since she came to you first. Sometimes a little proding is necessary. She may not realize that she needs to let you know something. Did she pay you for the tasting already? People get tied up with things, and don't realize how time flies. I hope you get the order. Good Luck.

karateka - I wouldn't second guess yourself. People working on wedding plans can be ultra-wishy-washy and unless the wedding is in 2 months, they probably aren't in a hurry to book anything. I'd do what cupcake suggested but if they don't book don't take it personally...your work speaks for itself!

I finally heard from my bride! I emailed her and said I had some inquiries about her date, but didn't want to give it away until I had talked to her. She got back to me and said she hasn't made a decision yet, that her daughter was in the hospital for a week, and she hasn't done much with wedding stuff for a while. She asked me to keep the date open. So I guess I'm still in the running!

OK! Get this! Now she wants to know about a red velvet cake. And she's coming down the weekend of Nov4 and want to have a tasting with RV cake and meet me. Which is all good and glorious, except for the fact that I work all day Thursday and have a wedding cake due Saturday (early) am. So the best I could do is make RVC ahead and freeze it, thaw it Sat and frost for a Sunday tasting. I told her it would be$15 and I would only apply one tasting fee to her final order. PLUS it would be an extra 25 cents per serving for RVC. I'm starting to think this is going to be a PITA, as much as I want the business. Plus, her cake is square, which I don't have one of those under my belt yet, so I want it. But I can see the warning signs now: "Danger, Will Robinson...."