My cake tastings are only for wedding cakes. I do 3 flavors cake, filling and icing. I make 3 dozen cupcakes for those 50 dollars we do the tasting from those and they get to take home the rest for friends and family and make their final decision on flavors. I also do fillings separate so they can taste with all 3 cakes. That's something that makes them happy when you tell them they get to share it with their family and take home all those cupcakes Works well for me. If they don't want to pay the fee than they can order cupcakes when ever I have sales and try them at that time.... If they like your work it shouldn't be a problem for someone to pay the fee.

Right now we do not charge, but after our last tasting we need a policy ....After making 7 different flavors 3 of them with fillings (turned out to be 100 cupcakes) on top of doing a birthday cake for a different client we were completely frazzled. But at 2:30 cake delivered, kitchen cleaned, cupcakes decorated, and put into pretty little boxes WITH bows; we were dressed and had the table set and ready to go....15mins. passed, then 30....I called to see if they were lost? The bride answered and sounded like she was sound to sleep!!! Said well she needed to cancel and reschedule because something came up??What!!!!! We had just baked all of that basically for her. I am sure you have all felt my level of anger?! I told her, as politely as I could, that there would not be enough time between now and her wedding for another tasting since everything was made fresh and another tasting that size was impossible. She hasn't called back.
Anyway, from the time she called pushing for the tasting till the actually day, we were able to add another bride (she didn't cancel and ordered both her wedding and groom's cakes) and with the other 93 cupcakes, minus the few we ate to calm the anger, we donated to our local insurance company. They were having a meeting and they always recommend our home bakery so it did turn out all right, but did cost us lots of time, stress, and money. Some days I hate learning lessons.

I don't think we started out to make that many usually we have left over batter from cakes we do, but it took every bit of batter for the cake...so we had to mix up 4 different batters ( two of them we were able to get several flavors) and we were getting at least 36 cupcakes each, we don't have room for freezing the batter so we had to bake everything. What we did learn ...is that the strawberry cake and strawberry filling recipes we found here on CC are wonderful!!! Also the cream cheese icing and lemon curd from TexasFoodCottageLaw taste delish too.

Maceyjane, I think you get the prize for worst tasting experience ever!

I provide a nice plate with 6 cake flavors and a variety of fillings and buttercreams. I use a mini scoop for each buttercream/filling. My brides get to mix and match flavors and come up with their own cake flavor combo.

I freeze 6" cakes and cut them into 2" squares to place on the plates. My buttercreams are also frozen and I scoop them out onto plates. Everthing is warmed up by the time I have my tastings (no one knows they've been frozen and I'm never asked). I usually keep cakes frozen for up to a month but during my busy season I rotate fresh cakes into the freezer weekly.

My cakes are scratch cakes and hold well frozen. My brides love my tasting plate presentation and I do include little bite size peices of fondant.

I do not charge for tastings for cakes over 100 servings. Less than 100, it's $30.00 and I limit guests to a total of 4. I always reconfirm the day before and yes, I still get a few no-shows but it's a small percentage. I book up to six 1-hour tastings at a time during peak season (2-3 days a week).