Custom cake tastings: planning them around the event date

Offer the tasting as its own appointment, with a fixed number of flavours prepared in advance, and ask clients to book it a set time before their event: long enough to finalise the design and order ingredients, short enough that their tastes haven't changed. Hold tastings on set days, so you can prepare all the samples in one batch. In the booking note, ask for the event date, the number of guests and any design ideas; in the description, say what the tasting costs and whether it's deducted from the order.

A custom cake is a big purchase, often for a day that matters: a wedding, a milestone birthday, a christening. Clients want to taste before they commit, and they want to talk through the design with the person who'll make it. That conversation doesn't happen well at a busy counter, between two customers buying a tart.

Tastings also cost you work. Each flavour needs a sample: sponge, filling, sometimes a finish. Preparing them for one couple on a random weekday is inefficient. Grouping tastings on set days, with samples made once for several appointments, makes them sustainable.

On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page. Each slot belongs to one service, with its own start and end. Clients pick a service, then a free slot. With one place per slot, a booked slot is full and disappears from your page.

Lengths and prices are examples: set your own. If the tasting fee is deducted from the order, say so in the description. Book doesn't take payments, so also say how the fee is paid.

Say in the description how far before the event clients should book. Too late, and you don't have time to order special ingredients, test a new flavour or fit the order into a busy week. Too early, and the couple's plans, guest count or venue may still change. A window of a few months before a wedding, and a few weeks before a birthday, is a reasonable starting point; adjust it to your own lead times.

Tastings for the busiest months of the year, such as the wedding season, need to happen before that season starts. Open tasting slots early in the year for summer weddings, and fewer in the peak months, when your time goes into production.

Pick one or two tasting days, such as a quiet weekday afternoon or a Saturday morning, and create consecutive slots on those days only. Repeat them each week until a date. You prepare one set of samples for the day, and each client gets their own appointment. If a tasting day has no bookings the day before, you can delete its slots and use the time elsewhere.

The public booking form asks for first name, last name, email and phone, plus an optional note that you read in your new-booking email.

After the tasting, send a quote with the design, the flavours, the price and your order deadline. If a design follow-up is needed, book it with the client from your calendar: first and last name are required, email and phone optional; with their email, they get a confirmation. Clients can't move bookings online: they contact you, and you reschedule or cancel from your bookings list, then confirm yourself, since Book doesn't email them about changes. Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.