Ok, So I decided to go beyond the basic buttercream icing/filling and try one that was posted. DISASTER!!!!! I was so embarrased. The client complained. I have never done any other filling. The only cake I use is almond sour cream because I am two scared to try anything else. Never done another filling cuz I am chicken. Any I know no other icing except the crusting buttercream with is delicious. I don't know what fillings go with what type of cake and icings. And I don't know which ones are great.....HELP!!!!

This is where experimenting on family comes into play! My first rule is that I never experiment on someone who isn't willing or doesn't know they are a guina pig!

What goes together is usually a matter of personal preference but you can get lots of ideas just by looking at other cake designers websites. Like check out Duff's site www.charmcitycake.com He has lots of flavors and combinations.

Bottom line my little chicken is you have to get in there and start experimenting. Make things that sound good to you. You know somepeople like chocolate and raspberry, lemon cake with fruit filling, use your imagination and have fun!

I agree- family and friends are very useful when it comes to trying new things. I have received rave comments on the raspberry mousse filling here on cc
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-2030-Rasberry-mousse-filling-II.html
This could also be used with any seedless fruit preserves

also on a cookies and cream filling, there is a recipe on cc, but i made it with 2 cups of heavy whipping cream and a box of oreo pudding. mix together and chill. my family was practically licking the bowl on that one!

Here's a thread with filling and frosting info:
(Includes info on sleeved pastry fillings.)

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-2258141-.html

Non-Refrigerated Fillings & Rich's Bettercreme:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-234431-.html

Favorite Cake & Filling Combinations:

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-44917

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-42824-.html

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-16197-.html

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-56742-.html
(Includes cake mix doctoring spreadsheet.)

HTH

HTH

I agree with dodibug! Experiment on willing friends and family. That is what I do. Two weeks ago we had a going away party for some friends and I used them as my guina pigs. I tried out a cherry buttercream filling with lemon cake. Everyone raved over it.

I just stepped outside the box myself recently. I made a dark chocolate fudge cake (from mix/heavily doctored), with dark chocolate peppermint ganache filling and coffee flavored buttercream (I used flavored liqueors from the liqueor store-great finds-but thats another thread). It was truly amazing and probably the best cake I have ever had . It probably helped a small bit that it was six layers of cake and ganache. The flavor combination was absolutely amazing and interpreted from a Starbucks drink.

I have had this problem myself. What I tend to do is go down the cookies aisle and the confectionery aisle in the local grocery store and look at what flavours they have all put together. anorris3 had a great idea - the local starbucks and places like that have great flavour combos!

Some great flavours are white chocolate and lemon, or raspberry or strawberry or coffee etc...
There is dark choc orange, or any chocolate and peanut/ peanut butter!!
Or how about coffee and walnut, or pecan etc...

The list goes on. I go to the library and devour any and all cookbooks to get different ideas. Some of the cheesecake books are great - there is one in particular that I love called "I Love Cheesecake" by Mary Crownover. If there is some different and obscure flavour combo she has found it, and the beauty of that is you can use it as research to find out how you can get some of those flavours into your cakes!

some of my favorites from scratch are:

chocolate mocha cake w/ whipped milk chocolate ganache

moist cinnamon carrot cake w/ whipped cream-cream cheese icing

lemon cream cheese pound cake w/ pureed strawberries, raspberries, or peaches filling, and whipped cream - cream cheese icing

moist yellow cake (from epicurious.com) w/ cookies and whipped cream filling

german chocolate cake w/ toasted coconut/pecan filling and dark bittersweet chocolate ganache icing

if you'd like to keep a scratch cake moist, try using a simple syrup brushed over the layers. ..also some great ingredients to look for in scratch recipes...buttermilk, real butter, cream, pure extracts, cake flour etc...

if you are looking for a really easy to use, great tasting/smelling premade fondant, try satin ice. www.satinfinefoods.com and www.intotheoven.com

pm me if you'd like any of the recipes i listed.

Well first, I'm curious to know what filling you used that turned out so badly!
Second, I agree with all the other posters about checking websites for their combos and trying them out on family. I'm wondering if there is a good way to utilize cupcakes to make several combo sample sizes? That way you could use one batch of cake and get a bunch of different combos accomplished, you could fill a few with a certain type of filling and then ice them differently, fill others with a different filling and ice them differently, etc etc.

thats a good idea with the cupcakes. just half or cut in quarters your recipes for fillings/icings or freeze the remains of the batch. if you want to fill cupcakes, wilton make a tip 230 which is long and pointy- specifically for that.

Well, thanks to everyone for theie wonderful advice. The cake I made was white almond sour cream because that is the only recipe I have. I then did the cookies and cream filling. The one you use crushed oreos in. I thought it was yummy. I just need to experiment I guess.

One of my favorites and seems to be a favorite of my customers is the White almond sour cream cake with white choc. rasberry creamer substituted for some of the water, the filling is white chocolate ganache and rasberry filling. I use the Solo brand canned fillings alot (they have rasberry, cherry, poppy seed, apricot, etc.)

Choc. cake with cherry filling is good too....tastes like a black forest cake.

Another favorite is chocolate fudge cake with choc. ganache filling and choc. buttercream icing.

My husbands personal favorite is choc. fudge cake with cream cheese icing with the filling being cream cheese icing sprinkled with crushed heath bars.....very rich, but delicious!!

I also recently made a lemon pound cake filled with rasberry and covered with lemon buttercream icing (used the regular buttercream icing recipe with a teaspoon of lemon extract and also some vanilla extract)

Someone didn't like your cookies and cream filling?? OMG....that's a favorite around here!!! Sorry they didn't enjoy it for some reason. What was their complaint about it?

Valerie

So, the cookies & cream is the one that bombed?? Just curious. I was thinking about making it next week...

I got a lot of compliments from making the WASC and filling it with a whipped strawberry cream cheese filling. Now I'm having a hard time getting people to let me make anything else! (I prefer raspberry filling.) Strawberry cake with a whipped cream cheese frosting is good too. Can you tell we like strawberries here?

How do you make a white chocolate ganache? Did you alternate layers of the ganache and raspberry filling? That sounds really good!

Yeah Cookies N Cream wouldn't go so well with the WASC IMHO. It's great with a chocolate cake, though.

Here's a list to get you started:

vanilla cake: vanilla BC, choc BC, creme royal, creme bouquet, fudge/ganache, mango, banana, strawberry, raspberry, peach, Bavarian cream, whipped cream, cream cheese

almond cake: creme royal, creme bouquet, almond BC, choc BC, choc-almond BC, fudge/ganache, poppyseed, raspberry

lemon cake: lemon BC, lemon curd, lime curd, raspberry, poppyseed, blueberry, strawberry, cream cheese

chocolate cake: vanilla BC, brown sugar BC, chocolate BC, almond BC, chocolate-almond BC, mint BC, orange BC, peanut butter BC, fudge/ganache, chocolate hazelnut (Nutella), dulce de leche (caramel), raspberry, strawberry, cherry, coffee, mocha, cookies 'n cream

HTH!

JenniferL- I make the white choc. ganche just like you would regular choc. ganache but I use almost twice the amount of white chocolate. It has alot more fat in it so if you don't increase the amount it won't firm up as well. I spread the rasberry filling on and then pour the melted white choc. ganache over the top of the rasberry filling. Make sure you use a good buttercream dam or it will leak out. I put a pretty thin layer of the ganache because it's VERY rich. This is also excellent because when you layer the cake, the ganache eventually firms up and helps "stick" all of your layers together!!!

so, essentially, each layer has rasberry and white choc. ganache in it.....it's sinful!!!

Valerie

Thanks Valerie! I will have to experiement this weekend! Yummm...

Also check out: ladycakes.com

Click on "recipes," then "fillings." Lots of good info there.

If you wanted to try the combinations out on cupcakes first, go to the cupcake fun section of the wilton website: www.cupcakefun.com there are heaps of recipes for cupcakes, fillings and icings, plus if you go into the techniques section, it tells you how to fill a cupcake, as well as so many other tips. Its definitely worth a look anyway!

Melysa would the lemon cream cheese pound cake be a good one for a wedding cake? DD is getting married in 3 weeks was thinking of lemon with raspberry filling.

In my quest to use up the over 200 peaches that my dad gave me from his tree, and a desire to try the WASC I came up with a nice little combo, the WASC with a peach raspberry filling, iced in BC with the creme royal flavoring. I even went a little wild and made a second one and brushed the layers with rum simple syrup and tossed a bit of rum in the peach raspberry filling. All my guniea pigs loved both, but the rum one was my favorite of the two.

The book that I just discovered at the library: Baking by Flavor, by Lisa Yockelson. There are these great charts in the first part of the book, that have each flavour and what complements/contrasts them, etc. And all the chapters sorted by flavour. Quite handy! So Ive been trying out a lot already. So far so good!
I did a banana spice cake yesterday with chocolate cream filling and frosting- I passed around beforehand the combo idea and got a few crinkled noses but the cake was a huge hit!
Some recipes bomb and ya make note and never use them again. Others you know you get good feedback from also, and some just wont like it, but you cant please every taste either right? And lots of tried and true combos here and from other cake decorator sites to trust, but the bottom line is you have to ultimately try them all out in your kitchen at home and find family/friends as guinea pigs to give honest feedback. All the cakes I'm doing for this quasi-business launch cake on Tuesday are recipes that have been tried. I'm too nervous as it is to try new recipes on potential paying customers

how much creme royal or butavan do you put in a all shortening icing? TIA

What is creme royal? I have never tried that. I tried a recipe this weekend from a box where you add melted white choc. but i couldn't taste the choc. I am suppose to make a cake tomorrow (a doll cake) not sure what cake to use. The costomer said surprise her. CRAP!!!!!