From Tasting to Table. Part One: The Tasting

This is the first post in a multi-part series following Abbie and Dan’s wedding cake journey; from their very first tasting all the way to the moment their cake was cut on their wedding day. Abbie is part of our Cake Eating Company whānau, and we are so grateful she has opened up her cake story to share with you. We hope it helps you feel a little more at ease with, at least the cake portion (pun intended), your wedding journey.

When Abbie and Dan sat down at our tasting table, Dan thought they had everything sorted. Lucky for Dan, seven flavours and a Pinterest board scroll later, Abbie did too.

Abbie has worked for us for 3.5 years, so she did have a little head start on what our process is (poor, poor Dan was not as well-versed).

Time-wise, we recommend booking your tasting and cake around six months before the big day. We find this timing works well as you will have a lot of the decorative aspects sorted, so the cake can be designed to fit in with your day. We often work alongside florists for your cake, so knowing who you are using and the flowers you will have can be really helpful.

The first part of the tasting starts before the tasting. In the same way we recommend not trying every cake on our menu (though it can be tempting), you need to work out which local cake makers fit your wedding. We are so lucky to have so many talented people making cakes in Christchurch, so to work out what you are looking for you can start with platforms like Google. We also recommend reaching out to vendors you have already booked. They will know the industry inside and out, so will have a good idea of who works well with the style you are wanting to achieve on your big day. Personal recommendations from people you know have good taste are also a great start to whittling down your list. Once you have a shortlist, have a good look through their website and social media. Do they offer flavours you like? Do you like their vibe? Do they do the style of cake you want? Once you’ve got there, it is time to eat cake!

If at this point you have The Cake Eating Company in your sights (we don’t blame you for that exquisite choice) then comes the tasting! We book our tastings with an online booking calendar and offer times on Thursdays during the day and Saturday afternoons. At this point you can select the flavours you would like to try and we collect a few important details, mainly the date of the big day, and pencil you in. For tastings we recommend coming with no more than four people. This means you can bring a couple of your nearest and dearest, but ensures you don’t have too many different opinions making it harder for you to put your feelings first.

The tasting itself? We recommend you come prepared with a few bits of information to start the design:

• Is the cake for display primarily, or will it be served as a dessert?
• If you have a Pinterest board or inspiration pictures, please bring them along.
• If you already have your invitations, flowers or wedding colours locked in and you would like to incorporate them into your cake design, please bring examples along.

Some couples already have their whole cake planned, and that is totally okay. We are ready to work with that.

When you come to your tasting you will get to sit down and have a chat with the inimitable Kade. When he remembers, he will offer you a hot drink on the house. If he forgets, just ask and we can make one for you to enjoy with your cake. You will take a seat in our side room with your cake samples and our albums, and on average tastings take around 20–40 minutes.

The cakes we offer are all part of our standard menus and we can make changes on request. For example, we can switch the white chocolate ganache to dark on the raspberry white chocolate cake, or add some caramel to your mud cake. We do make custom cake flavours, though this depends on what you are after. Some flavours are not suitable for stacking in multi-tiered cakes, and if it is not a cake flavour or ingredient we are comfortable using (usually due to our familiarity with it) we may not be able to help. Your wedding cake is not the time for experimentation on our part.

Abbie has been a long-standing fan of our sticky date cake and, honestly, we all are. Daisy and Jamie made the samples for Abbie with a side of fun, picking things she would like while being 100% confident she would go sticky date. She did not and this caused an uproar. Their cake tasting turned into a TCEC family dinner, and the shouts of horror at the sticky date scandal are a good reason of why we have a recommendation of four people at the tasting.

Abbie and Dan had a selection of cakes for their tasting, including a few of our heartfelt options (spoiler alert: the above picture was a photo op. Their real tasting involved tequila, not coffee). The flavours? Coconut chocolate and passionfruit, sticky date, peach bellini, matcha strawberry, banana espresso, lemon blueberry, and double chocolate. The winners on the day were the chocolate coconut and passionfruit, lemon blueberry, and peach bellini. The peach, her secret favourite, was made into the top tier so she could sneak it away for herself.

We recommend keeping the number of flavours to two or three for your cake. We find this gives a good amount of variety without overwhelming your guests with options. The most important thing to keep in mind is to pick what you like. It’s your wedding, after all! Our next recommendation is to balance your flavours: if you have a chocolate mud cake, consider pairing it with a lemon, raspberry, or passionfruit so there is a light, fruity option alongside a rich, chocolatey one.