Taste Vs Looks - What Is Most Important In A Cake??? Long!!

Decorating By Jessica176 Updated 14 Jul 2007 , 7:23am by 7yyrt

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awolf24 Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 1:45pm
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I'm going to echo what everyone else seems to be saying but I think both taste and "look" are important. But when it comes down to it, this is cake we are talking about and not sculpture (although many cakes I see could be considered art/sculpture!) and in the end, it is meant to be eaten. So I think it is better to have a great tasting cake that looks pretty good than to have a completely beautiful cake that tastes like sawdust. icon_smile.gif

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indydebi Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 1:53pm
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I had a thread on this some time ago (but I can't find it).

My sister went to a wedding. The cake was pretty but tasted terrible! My sister isn't "into" cakes like we are, but she told me,"I think most people will forgive a cake that doesnt' look perfect if it tastes good."

This same sister was married over 25 years ago and used "the" decorator in town, whose cakes, by the way, tasted like crap! 25 years later, we have no idea what her cake looked like, but we remember how bad it tasted!

Taste .... Hands down.

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snarkybaker Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:13pm
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Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste It is after all a cake. Nobody asks how your oil painting tastes.

That said, presentation is important in food, but I would rather see a beautifully glazed chocolate cake that looks like a cake, than a confection covered in wildly colored shortening laden frosting that looks like a VW min-van. I respect the work of the cake artist, but I'd rather eat the work of a pastry chef.

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BlairsMom Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:19pm
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I agree with the taste! Sure it should look good too but eventually you are going to want to eat it so it better be tasty!! I don't think that I am a spectatular decorator at all but people rave about the taste of my cakes and BC and they keep ordering so taste is obviously important!

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ombaker Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:23pm
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I just made my own birthday cake and I went for buttercream. It would have looked better in fondant but I just don't like the stuff. I think I may make most of my cakes with buttercream from now on. Oh and scratch baking all the way!!

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coolmawmy Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:24pm
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TASTE!!!! All I remeber about my wedding cake is that is was lavendar with some white design, have NO clue what the design looked like but OMG the cake was SO good!!!!!! I just went to a wedding a few weeks ago and the cake was SO cute and the groom's cake was very nice but both cakes were SO dry and just nasty. People take pics of cakes to remeber what they look like, but they will ALWAYS remeber if the cake was terribly or amazingly good.

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cococakes Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:28pm
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I agree with most of the replies, your cake has to taste good. Looking nice is always what we should aim for, but hands down I'm only interested in taste.

I had a pastry chef tell me once, I would rather eat a great tasting cake that looks nice than eat a great looking cake that taste like garbage.

Your taste buds always remember.

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chocolateandpeanutbutter Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:28pm
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I agree that a cake should both look and taste wonderful.

But if I had to pick one or the other, I'd go for taste, hands down. That's what people will always remember - if a cake looks pretty but tastes bad, they'll remember the bad taste, not how pretty the cake was.

Like building a house (and some of these cakes are almost as big) it's only as strong as it's foundation. Perfect the cake first, and you'll always have satisfied customers. You can always improve the decorations with practice.

Personally, I've had the best results with doctored cake mixes. I use a box mix (usually Duncan Hines) and add an extender. Works every time!

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tyty Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:37pm
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Taste is most important to me because I grew up on great tasting cakes. The decorating is secondary. When it looks great and tastes good too, I am satisfied. I want customers to admire the look and love that taste. I will never be the decorator I would like to be because I started late in life, but I put everything I have into the taste first.

I once did a wedding cake and the bride came in to see the cake after I set it up. She was having her make-up done at the time. She actually cried when she saw it. This was only my 2nd wedding cake so it made me feel real good. Then later on after all the guests were served cake, they actually started wrapping another slice to take home, there was not much left and they started running trying to get some before it was all gone!

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vitomiriam Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:39pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jenn2179

I think it needs to look good and taste great. My husband is at the police academy right now. He has a couple of extra pounds but isn't fat. The training guys like to tease him and ask him why he has those extra pounds assuming it was from drinking beer. He told them, "no my wife makes cakes." Last week for the 4th of July I took a cake to a party for my husband and his police academy co-workers. The next day at work the guy who hosted the party to my husband, "I see why you eat cake. Your wife's cake looked great and tasted even better." The best compliment I could get.




Jenn2179, I am laughing because my husband is a cop too and goes to work and complains about his extra weight because of my cake-making. I myself have put on an extra 10 pounds. LOL
But to answer the question, I don't know anyone in my circle that will eat a bad tasting cake no matter how pretty it is. We have a very famous latin bakery that makes beautiful cakes and they are absolutely delicious. If you can compete with them on both levels (taste and looks), you can't GIVE away a cake.

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korid Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:41pm
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Before I started decorating cakes I always bought the cakes that tasted good over the looks. That is one of the reasons I started decorating cakes is because I could never find a cake that tasted good AND looked good too. I knew that I could bake a cake that was delicious so I took cake decorating classes to learn to decorate. Now I can have what I have wanted all along....great taste AND a beautiful cake! I have always wanted to know how to decorate cakes and I have found something I truely love to do.

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singsing Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 2:58pm
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I think it depends on what you get paid for. I pretty much only make cakes for family weddings with NO PAY. I can't afford to do scratch so I just use cake mix. No one ever complained about the cake mix (except when I use wilton fondant, sorry but its about ease and cost and time) I know they want me to do it so they can have something that looks good, in my culture they don't always serve the cake or only to a hand-full of guests anyway. I should start convincing them to just have dummy cakes.

BUT If I was paying for a cake I would want it to taste good too! And if someone paid me for a cake I would make sure it tasted as good as I could get it.

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smbegg Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 3:01pm
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I think that it is possible to make a great looking cake and have it taste good too. (though I am not quite there yet on the looks at least!)

I think that these expensive bakeries or cakers that have bad tasting cakes are just being cheap on ingredients or the process that they use to make the actual cake. If they were really good, they would be able to use great tasting ingredients to make the cake. Now that would be talent!

I personally do not put anything on a cake that doesn't taste good. Not everyone may like the taste of Marshmallows, but my MMF doesn't taste Bad! That is the only questionable thing that I put on my cakes, and that is just a preference thing.

If the cake doesn't taste good, no matter how pretty, it is not a good cake. I would rather have a great tasting, undecorated sheet cake than a beautiful masterpiece that tastes like crap!

Stephanie

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berryblondeboys Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 3:48pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by txkat

Taste! Taste! Taste! Taste It is after all a cake. Nobody asks how your oil painting tastes.

That said, presentation is important in food, but I would rather see a beautifully glazed chocolate cake that looks like a cake, than a confection covered in wildly colored shortening laden frosting that looks like a VW min-van. I respect the work of the cake artist, but I'd rather eat the work of a pastry chef.




Oh, SOOOOOO true!!!! The cakes I make for home are NOT decorated in buttercream, but a european custard like topping (made from eggs and milk and sugar and butter)... ONLY for birthday parties where other kids are invited over do I do a theme cake... so it's funny that I'm doing decorated cakes because we RARELY eat them at home (aother reaso I don't do practice cakes! LOL)

Melissa

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snowboarder Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 4:55pm
post #45 of 55

Taste. And I have done a complete turn-around on my decorating style because of it. No sculpting, no brilliantly colored fondant or icing. I do simply decorated cakes with a minimum of accents and those accents are as natural as possible. To me, there is nothing more gorgeous than a cake that looks like cake.

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randipanda Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 5:09pm
post #46 of 55

Hmm, this is interesting. Of course the perfect cake would taste wonderful and look beautiful, but what tastes good to you may be oversweet to some, or what is moist to some will be doughy to others.

And it depends on the type of cake too, a whimsy cake or carved cake will need to be heavier, denser and perhaps a little less moist- and thus less good tasting than a traditional cake. However, does that give it license to taste horrible? Nope, but in that instance it makes sense to sacrifice some of the taste for the look. The same thing goes for some of the wonderful cakes that taste divine, but would never stand up to fondant- in that case you might have to sacrifice the look you want for the taste....

Uhh, so I guess my answer is it depends....

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apclassicwed Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 9:09pm
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I started cake decorating again for my kid's birthdays for this very reason--I want a cake to TASTE as good as it LOOKS! So many times the high end bakeries make gorgeous cakes/desserts that disappoint in the taste area.
I put alot of time and effort into my recipes and baking to have a good tasting cake and I also put my heart into the decorating so the cake looks good too

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Mencked Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 9:33pm
post #48 of 55

I think that taste is every bit as important as looks. I think people pay more for the exquisite look of a cake, but I don't think they would order again if the gorgeous cake tastes awful. I really strive to perfect the cake taste and have had people tell me that they keep coming back for the great taste, oh and they think the decorating skills aren't too bad either. HA!

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indydebi Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 9:44pm
post #49 of 55

Kinda like restaurants .... I'm sure you've all heard people talk about "the service sucks but the food is so good!!" I've never heard anyone talk about going to a restaurant where the food sucks but the waitresses are nice! (And Hooters doesn't count!) icon_lol.gif

Taste. thumbs_up.gif

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CakesbyMonica Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 9:55pm
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My mother was saying at her church in TN they had a cake walk and some lady brought in a cake that had fallen apart and looked absolutely horrible and there were several nicely decorated cakes. Of course, the ugly one was the last to go. Then they tasted the cakes and the woman with the ugly cake had the best tasting. People were licking their fingers and took her business card.

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coreenag Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 9:58pm
post #51 of 55

Both are important but taste wins out. After the cake has been cut the design may be ruined but you don't want it thrown out because it tastes bad.

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rajinaren Posted 11 Jul 2007 , 10:01pm
post #52 of 55

TASTE is the first thing...I have freinds asking cake from me not bcoz it looks good....but it taste good than what they buy outside. Anyway...Look also matter but that dosent help the cake.It might look good...nobody will order a taste less cake again.

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Ladybug6509 Posted 12 Jul 2007 , 4:53am
post #53 of 55

I have had so many of my clients come to me with this complaint: "Their work was astonishing, right down to the smallest detail, but their cake just wasn't good." Their complaints range from dry to undercooked, to the point of the egg still being like snot. Or they just have no flavor. Who wants to eat a stale piece of cake?

I think flavor is the basis of the cake. You may have a spectacular cake sitting on display but if it doesn't taste good, it doesn't matter. Many of my clients come to me worn out with cake tastings gone bad elsewhere. Many of them also aren't cake fans and are getting it just because you should have one. Whoever they bring with them is always like Wow, she isn't a cake eater but she just ate that WHOLE piece. Guess taste counts for something.

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indydebi Posted 12 Jul 2007 , 12:33pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulsAngel

....Whoever they bring with them is always like Wow, she isn't a cake eater but she just ate that WHOLE piece. Guess taste counts for something.




I get that a lot .... self-proclaimed "I'm not a cake lover" people who just LUV my cakes. It's the highest compliment!

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7yyrt Posted 14 Jul 2007 , 7:23am
post #55 of 55

TASTE, TASTE, TASTE!!!

If it doesn't taste glorious why bother...

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