I made a trial cake tonight - chocolate w/chocolate bc filled with dreamy peanut butter bc that had some strawberry jam on top of it. I tried the jam to see how the combination would be and it was ok - dh liked it. The whole reason I'm thinking about this is that it's for an anniversary couple and he loves peanut butter and I found out that she loves maraschino cherries - I wanted to see how the filling was with a peanut butter/jam combo. Now what I did wasn't too bad, but how do you think a maraschino cherry jam/jelly would be? I kind of don't really like them, so it doesn't sound too exciting to me, but her good friend told me that she will come to her house and go in her refrigerator and empty her jars of m. cherries - that's how much she loves them - so it sounded fun to show their "blended" lives in the filling.

What do you think?

I think I'm being too indecisive with this - now I'm wondering if I shouldn't also go with a yellow cake and regular white bc instead of the chocolate/chocolate..... maybe it makes it all too rich.....

I may have time to make only one more trial cake before I have to do the final one, so I have to get this figured out!

I value your expert opinions - so go ahead and tell me what you think!

I would go with the yellow cake. Let us know of your outcome does sound yummy

I think you're right. With the peanut butter it was just too rich.

What about the outside frosting - should I stay with chocolate or go with the regular bc?

I'll try to pick up some marachino cherries and pectin today - I will definitely let you know!

I have done a PB&J cake before and it got rave reviews. I used vanilla cake, with jam fililng and peanut butter buttercream. I'm not sure about the chocolate though, I think chocolate and peanut butter are great but not with the jam filling.

Ok, thanks for the input. I think I will try a vanilla cake and regular bc. I'd like to try kind of swirling the pb & jelly together so I can write something on the cake about "blending two lives" And if that doesn't work, I'll back the peanut butter off to just the frosting.

Yay - thanks so much for helping me get this figured out!!!