I've got several cakes coming up in July and August for different family birthdays and functions, but I am getting tired of the basic cake recipes. I want to really wow them with something special.

I usually doctor up cake mixes and have the cake dr. books and I know there's a gourmet thread and I've been slowly making my way through it but honestly it makes my head spin and then I can't decide which one to try! I think I could spend weeks reading that thread...

I was hoping that some of you cakers out there would provide some feed back and suggest your favorite recipe or flavor combo that's not the basic white, yellow, chocolate cake. TIA

my best seller is white chocolate raspberry.

white cake mix
1 box white choc. pudding mix (instant)
3 egg whites
1-1/3 c. water
1/3 c. oil
2 capfuls of raspberry extract
3 oz. white chocolate shaved into mixed batter and then folded in.



You can check out my flavors on my website and if any strike your fancy I'd be happy to pm you with the recipes!

KHalstead, when you say "1 box white choc. pudding mix (instant)"
are you talking about the sugar free, fat free one or the regular, full fat one?
I have tried so many different recipes and have added pudding and it always comes out tasting/texture as gummy/mushy when eating it.

Always willing to keep trying, wondering if I am using the wrong type of pudding mix?


TIA

I have people begging for my cappuccino cake recipe. I'm not telling any customers or potential customers that I posted the recipe here.

OOOO please share the recipe??

I find that people usually like the white, vanilla or chocolate cake flavors the best, mostly because they are familiar flavors and big crowd pleasers.

Where I do my variations or craziness is my fillings. There are so many things that you can fill a chocolate or vanilla cake with that are outside of the box. Peanut butter, cookies and cream, white chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries (thats a hot seller), hazelnut crunch, coffee crunch, walnut cream, pecan pie, marshmallow fluff, and those are just some of the favorites.

So if the choice is a plain old boring vanilla cake, then try and steer them towards a different filling choice.

I do the raspberry too! Only I also add some Polaner seedless raspberry allfruit and sometimes some raspberry juice if I have it..plus a tiny dab of fuschia Americolor...pale pink cake tastes more raspberry than off white. haha.

I am still madly in love with the orange version of the WASC recipe. I just can't get enough of this!
I make the one without pudding....oh so yummy!

Click on the link in my signature -- it will bring you to the google docs of all the threads that have them -- there's TONS of flavor suggestions and recipes there.

Thanks for all the quick replies!

This is the link for BeanCountingBaker's cappuccino cake:
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/15556/cappuccino-cake
Sounds really yummy and my hubby LOVES coffee, so I will definitely give this one a shot.

The fushia coloring is a great idea...funny but true, I'm sure!

Jayde - Please share your filling recipes with us!!!

KHalstead - That also sounds yummy! I have tried white chocolate cake with a raspberry filling and folks liked it, but I've never flavored the cake itself...definitely worth a try. What do you fill and ice this cake with?

Seriously...if I see an offwhite cake (actually the preserves and raspberry flavorings kinda give it a dull greyish color to the batter) I would be like "Oh I hope she made this raspberry....*taste, taste*....*smack smack*...hmm yeah I think I taste the raspberry in there...

But if its pale pink colored (nothing neon, just gentle) they will cut it and say Mmmm look I want a piece of the raspberry one! And then of course it tastes like raspberry!

haha.

I'm with Jayde, I look at the basic cake as my blank canvas and I go crazy with the fillings. I like it when someone cuts into the cake thinking its "just" white/chocolate etc. and then they get the explosion of new flavors. Priceless!

I'm glad this was started! I want to make something different for my dad for father's day. I think I'm going to make Macsmom's Kahlua Cake. But I'll keep an eye on this thread to see if he would like something better.

Most of the time I start with either chocolate or vanilla box mix and go from there flavoring the batter. A very easy way to flavor batter is to replace some of the water with the syrup used to flavor coffees. Use sugar free though or it will be way to sweet. I sub about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the flavoring depending on what flavor I'm making. Some of my best sellers are chocolate raspberry, white chocolate raspberry (vanilla cake, rasp syrup, and shaved white chocolate), vanilla raspberry, and vanilla caramel. The raspberry ones seem to be huge around here. I also do use instant pudding mixes for every 2 boxes of mix. Flavor of pudding also varies with flavor of cake. You can put the syrups in buttercream in place of your extracts if you want a frosting to "match" your cake. Another hot flavor is lemon poppyseed. It's not just for muffins!

How about a whiskey cake (made in a bundt pan) or an Italian Cream Cake. You can do a snickerdoodle cake with cinnamon buttercream icing for something different. Or a key lime cake with cream cheese icing for summer.

Man, the white chocolate raspberry and chocolate raspberry sounds so good!

Thank you so much for all the great ideas. This really helps.

This is the most popular. I use it with white or vanilla cake and fill with this and fresh raspberries. Its really really good, but MUST be refrigerated.

WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE MOUSSE
1 cup whipping cream
2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
4 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
4 ounces white chocolate baking squares, melted
vanilla beans from one pod

In a cold mixing bowl beat cream until soft peaks form. Gradually add powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Put this in a bowl in the fridge. Dont wash your mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese in it, until fluffy. Add the white chocolate and vanilla bean scrapings and beat until smooth. Fold in the whipped cream.

That will fill an 8-inch and a 6 inch. I chill overnight in the fridge, BUT I have left it out for about 4 hours before cutting and it was just fine. It was chilled really well, and I was told that the filling was still chill.

I've had no luck finding Bettercreme in Louisiana. I would love to make mousse fillings but don't have the fridge space for cakes. Where do you guys buy this?

I'm with Jayde on the "regular cake change the filling" theory. As a matter of fact, I use to tell my brides at the tasting appt that they need to try a bit of white cake with white icing as a base taste, ".... then be sure to mix-n-match the cakes with the different fillings so you can see how changing JUST the filling and totally change the taste of the cake!"

Also, whenever this question comes up, I always caution folks to be sure to be considerate of who your audience will be. If someone wanted to make me a cake that was "different" simply because THEY wanted to experiment with "different" and then they brought me a pumpkin-nutmeg-cinnamon concoction thing ..... they'd end up taking the whole thing home with them because I wouldn't even consider eating anything with those flavors in it.

Not only is white/choc/yellow the "familiar" flavors, as mentioned above, but these also happen to be the flavors that most people genuinely like.

But you take a "plain 'ole boring" chocolate cake and put some cream-cheese-"Dreamsicle" icing in it as the filling .... and omg what a magnificent flavor combination yo'uve just created!

A