Wedding Cake Tasting at Home

Our wedding planning has been put on hold while we’re all in isolation. I could utilize the extra downtime to make more wedding decisions, but I just can’t bring myself to when the future is uncertain. Our cake tasting with Jessica at Louisa’s Homemades was scheduled for the end of March when everything went on lockdown. Jessica pivoted and did to go cake tastings with a porch pickup. We decided to make the best of it, and turn our wedding cake tasting at home into a fun date!

Prep Ahead of Time

About an hour before we picked up our cupcakes, I cleared the dining room table. Since I’m working from home right now and using the table as my office, that was no small feat. Setting the table before hand meant I’d have nicer pictures and we’d be better prepared for our tasting. Who is going to set the table when there’s cupcakes waiting to be eaten?

Plus a little extra preparation beforehand meant we’d focus on each other and our serious task of cupcake eating rather. We enjoyed our time together without being interrupted by phones, taking pictures, or getting things we needed.

Set Up a Camera

With the possibility of a few traditional wedding events, like a bachelorette and bridal shower, not happening, I wanted pictures from our cake tasting at home. Wedding events are special and worth documenting! I set up a tripod and took a few test shots so we’d be ready when we started our tasting.

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My fiance has less patience for photos that I do, so setting up in advance made it relatively painless for him. Two quick rounds of self timer photos and we dug into our cupcakes. (Make sure you know where your self timer setting are ahead of time.) We did do another quick round of photos while we ate too. Got to have a few action shots! But because everything was set up it took less than a minute.

Plates + Utensils

We used a small plate for each of us, as well as forks. I set out several butter knives, figuring we’d use them to cut the cupcakes. We didn’t. We had 5 unique cupcakes to try. I didn’t think about a small tray for the cupcakes until we brought them home. A cutting board, or platter would work well too.

It was easier to share a plate than cut cupcakes in half to go on each of our plates. I peeled back the wrapper and we each took a few small bites with a fork. We were fancy like on the baking shows. We left a few bites of each cupcake to return to later. That enabled us to revisit flavors again and try different caking, buttercream, and filling combinations.

Jessica did send us home with a dozen cupcakes. We could have each eaten a full one of every flavor, but that’s a ton of sugar. Instead, we opted to split them instead. And that let us enjoy snacking on them a few days longer.

Add Some Decorations

Look around the house to see what can make your table prettier and feel more special. I hung a Valentine’s banner that I had in a drawer. It added a little color to our photos. We had a cute cupcake kitchen towel that I used to set our utensils on. If you have flowers blooming outside, cut a few to decorate your table or use any wedding decorations you have.

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OTHER WEDDING RELATED POSTS: Take Care of Your Engagement Ring | What to Do When You Get Engaged

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Cake Tasting Cards

Having a spot to jot a few notes turned out to be more useful than I thought. I made cards with the different cake flavors, buttercreams, and fillings we tried. Kind of like with wine, I thought I’d have a note or two. But after we tried the combinations the cupcakes came as, we ended up making a few combos of our own. It was quite useful to be able to jot down our ideas and rankings. Plus it just feels more official that way.

Here’s a simple template (in Google Slides) you can easily change for your flavors. I printed ours on cardstock to make them more durable to sticky fingers. If you have some nicer paper or fun colors laying around, use those to make things special.

Beverages

I picked out a nicer than normal chardonnay we were saving whatever felt important and made sure it was chilling in the fridge. Then I set out wine glasses. A nice wine helped this feel more like an event rather than standard takeout.

I also set out glasses for water. True cupcake connoisseurs need to cleanse the palate between flavors after all. If you’re having coffee or tea at the wedding, try them here too. That’ll help determine which cakes pair with those beverages.

A Lovely Cake Tasting Date

Having prepared ahead of time, all we needed to do was set out cupcakes, pour wine and snap a few photos before we got started.

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Our cake tasting at home felt like we were out for a special date. If you’re reading this when we’re no longer in self isolation or you’re not planning a wedding, this can still be a fun at home date! Pick up different flavors form a local bakery and make your own tasting fun.

How are you handling wedding planning during this crazy time?

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