Wedding Cakes & Food Forum

Cake Flavor Ideas?

My maid of honor's sister has a certified food prep kitchen and bakes weekly for our local farmer's market.  She's also done a handful of wedding cakes, and has now agreed to do our cake for just the cost of ingredients (possibly saving our budget in the process, which basically makes her my wedding superhero)!

We've decided that we're just going to do a few 1 or 2-tier cakes and then one center 3-tier cake (we'll have roughly 200 guests) to keep the stacking easy on her, which means we can have a few different flavors out.

What I need help with is this: She is willing to make pretty much any flavor cake we want.  She asked us to come up with 4 or 5 combos we would like to try to get started.  She'll bake a few for us to taste (and for her to familiarize herself with the recipe) and then we'll choose our favorite 2 or 3!  I'm kind of excited about the freedom of choosing whatever we want, but now I'm also stumped by it!  We've got about 10 months 'til the wedding, so we're not in a hurry here, but she also wants to practice the ones we choose a couple of times (for parties or just for her family), so she wants us to get started now.

Anyone have a cake flavor combo that was just the best thing ever?  The two FI and I have thought of so far (and not even sure they're what we want to try) are some sort of chocolate/coffee combo and white cake with lemon curd filling and lemon buttercream.

What else?!  Thanks for any help!
Wedding Countdown Ticker

Re: Cake Flavor Ideas?

  • Our cake was lime and blackberry, which we thought was just about the best thing ever, but is maybe a bit out there for you. We also tried sour cherry orange. Other flavors that would be good:

    Chocolate raspberry
    White chocolate strawberry
    Almond raspberry
    Dulce de leche
    Peanut butter pretzel chocolate

    A really good vanilla cake with vanilla beans would also be awesome.

    What are your favorite flavors in general? What kinds of things do you tend to go for, dessert-wise?
  • ElcaBElcaB member
    2500 Comments Fifth Anniversary 500 Love Its First Answer
    Be careful with coffee flavors because not everyone likes it (I'm a total addict myself, but there are some weirdos out there!). 

    Personally, I'm am a huge fan of white cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream. 
    image
  • We're doing lemon cake with strawberry filling (I really wanted raspberry, but FI wanted strawberry) and almond cake with Nutella filling.  

    Other thoughts:

    Red velvet
    Spice cake
    Pineapple cake
    Graham cracker cake

    Go check out the box mixes for ideas!  Even though you won't be doing it from a box, you might get ideas about cake flavors.  They usually have recipes on the back for different frosting combinations.
  • There was a bakery in my college town where they had pink lemonade cakes, and EEEVERYONE was obsessed with them.
  • Except for coffee and carrots, as far as I'm concerned any flavor of cake is good.
  • Thank you all for the feedback!  I didn't really think about the coffee thing being off-putting to people so maybe we'll nix that and go with a different chocolate combination!  

    I'm definitely open to more ideas, but I'll for sure be taking some of these suggestions to her!  
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • I also think honey vanilla is a great, simple flavour combo, if you want something that is more low-key.

  • I love fudge and/or buttercream frosting and am disappointed when I see a fondant frosted cake. It's pretty but doesn't taste good.
  • Honestly, my favorite kind of cake is yellow or white cake with chocolate pudding filling.  Yum!  I don't care what kind of icing is on the outside....I don't usually eat it anyway.
  • We had tiramisu, apple cinnamon and black forest. 

    I'm also a big fan of pumpkin, carrot and spice cakes. For at home baking, I like to add in a little Baileys or Kahlua to icings, maybe that could be an option as well?
    image



    Anniversary
  • I'm so glad I asked!  You all have awesome ideas!
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • ElcaBElcaB member
    2500 Comments Fifth Anniversary 500 Love Its First Answer
    edited June 2014
    emmyg65 said:
    Our cake was lime and blackberry, which we thought was just about the best thing ever, but is maybe a bit out there for you. We also tried sour cherry orange. Other flavors that would be good:

    Chocolate raspberry
    White chocolate strawberry
    Almond raspberry
    Dulce de leche
    Peanut butter pretzel chocolate

    A really good vanilla cake with vanilla beans would also be awesome.

    What are your favorite flavors in general? What kinds of things do you tend to go for, dessert-wise?
    I...didn't even know this was a possibility.
    image

    image
  • Anything is a possibility! I'd do chocolate cake and peanut butter buttercream with crushed pretzels between the layers.

    Dammit, now I want cake.
  • We did:

    chocolate mint
    chocolate peanut butter
    vanilla w/ vanilla buttercream
    vanilla w/strawberry

    My favorite is chocolate mint. But really anything with chocolate. 
    image
  • I love buttercream.  The biggest thing is making sure you have a non-chocolate option, and a non-nut option if you're doing lots of options.  I usually don't get to eat cake at catered events because I do not eat chocolate.  Seems like there's always red velvet or something with chocolate.  And, some people don't like/are sensitive to nuts.  
  • Maybe a champagne-flavored cake (with strawberry or raspberry filling)? I had no idea that was a thing until I discovered our baker and her amazing cake!!!


    Daisypath Anniversary tickers



  • I know some people who hate chocolate or anything with spices in them (that would be me). But if you're having various flavours then you can totally do a chocolate cake, one with some spice in it and a lemony one! Our cake will be vanilla bean with fresh almond butter cream inside. Hopefully it's something everyone will love, and it will also go well with our dessert buffet of fresh tropical fruit (getting married in Mauritius), chocolate tart, peach cobbler and ice cream trolley.
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • All of these sound so delicious!
    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
    image
  • Mmmmm cake.

    How about salted caramel?  Or cookies n cream?  Or a dulce de leche thing?  

    We are having chocolate orange, raspberry lemonade, red velvet (these are the cupcake options) and we are still debating about the cake that we are cutting (one layer on the cupcake tree)
    Daisypath Anniversary tickers

    image
  • I don't know about other flavors but ours was layers of chocolate and banana cake layered with a chocolate truffle filling and sliced of fresh bananas.  I figured if people didn't like chocolate, they could just eat the banana cake party.
  • We're doing white cake with rum raspberry filling, almond poppy-seed with lemon filling, apple with cream cheese, and chocolate peanut butter. YUMMMM! 

    I'm a sucker for anything with a cream cheese frosting. Hell, if you put it on a shoe I would probably nibble on it... 
  • A few cake flavors that I have made that people have loved:
    -Chocolate cake with a peanut butter center (tastes just like a Reeses)
    -Chocolate Banana with a chocolate buttercream -- banana can be a substitute for egg, so if I make these I always do flavors that work with Banana
    -Guinness and Dark Chocolate (the Guinness makes the cake fluffy and enhances the dark chocolate flavor)
    - Strawberry Lemonade (strawberry cake with a lemon buttercream)
    image
  • Well neither of us our fruit filled cake fans and FH really doesnt care for cake all together besides funfetti we asked our venue and they are making us a funfetti cake! FH is so happy!

     

  • casey8784casey8784 member
    100 Love Its 100 Comments Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    edited July 2014
    The bakery that we're going with had some AMAZING flavors that I had previously not really cared for (spice, vanilla almond, carrot - i usually HATE carrot cake! - etc) but we were a bit afraid of going too "out there" with flavors since we didn't want 250 people to not like it. Our cake is 4 tiers, so we're having 2 tiers of lemon cake with raspberry and lemon filling, and 2 tiers of white cake with champagne+strawberries filling. Boring? Possibly, but damn, they were probably some of the best cake I've ever had... :) ETA: The "surprise" groom cake (FI doesn't know that I designed and ordered one for him!) is traditional red velvet. He's not a cake person at all, except he'll devour any and all red velvet cake...!
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • A few cake flavors that I have made that people have loved:
    -Chocolate cake with a peanut butter center (tastes just like a Reeses)
    -Chocolate Banana with a chocolate buttercream -- banana can be a substitute for egg, so if I make these I always do flavors that work with Banana
    -Guinness and Dark Chocolate (the Guinness makes the cake fluffy and enhances the dark chocolate flavor)
    - Strawberry Lemonade (strawberry cake with a lemon buttercream)
    Would you mind sharing your recipe for the Guinness and Dark Chocolate? Those are two of my husband's favourite things and I'd love to make it for his birthday. Thank you! :-)
    image
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards