Cake Flavor Combinations – How to Combine Filling and Frosting

Pairing the right cake flavors with the right filling and frosting can be critical to the success of recipes. These Cake Flavor Combinations are a great guide to have on hand when you are wondering what to bake or what is the best flavor combination for a particular cake.

How to combine Cake Flavors, Fillings and Frostings. Cake Flavor Combinations.

Have you ever wondered about the endless possibilities of cake flavor combinations or cake flavor ideas?

• Which flavors go well together?
• Also, what cake flavor goes with buttercream frosting?
• What flavor and filling go well with lemon cake?
• Or even what flavor goes with a red velvet cake? And what filling should I use for red velvet cake?
• What goes with a chocolate cake? Which filling should I use in my chocolate cake?
• Which are the best cake combinations? What is the best cake filling combinations?
• Vanilla cake flavor combinations
• Best flavor and filling combinations
• And what are the best cake favor combination for decorated cakes?

When I started my little cake business one of my challenges was to figure out what cake flavor combinations would go well together. I’d have all these questions in my head and spent hours trying small batches of recipes and seeing whether I really liked them or not. I’ve given away a lot of free cakes just to get feedback and inputs from family and friends.

In truth what may be a family favorite does not necessarily work in business. For example:

• Red velvet cake combination –  I love my red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting but when I make it for a customer with fondant I usually use Swiss Meringue Buttercream – it’s easier to work with.
• Cake flavor that goes with lemon cake – I love lemon cake with lemon curd and lemon buttercream. But here the weather is so hot that in summer I don’t offer that flavor with fondant cakes. NOPE!! It has to be a buttercream cake and it has to be eaten within 3 days.

I love cakes!! And I love baking new flavors as much as eating them. Over the years I’ve lost count of the many experiments I’ve done with flavor ideas. I must admit that some have not made it to my books as keepers. And yet, I still enjoyed the process.

When I started cake decorating professionally, I started putting together a list of popular flavors and combinations and my list keeps getting longer and longer.

Cake Decorating Recipes for Every Cake Decorator

Here is a collection of cake decorating recipes that every cake decorator needs to have in her collection. Whether you are looking for simple cake recipes, calculated cake recipes, homemade fondant recipes from scratch, homemade frosting, or in-trend products such as homemade edible sugar lace, sugar fabric, or homemade bean paste for sugar flowers.

So what are some creative cake flavors to try? Here’s a small part of that list, I think you will love very much. (Save/Pin)

Cake Flavors and Filling Combinations

• Almond cake with almond cream and white chocolate buttercream – 
  Use my Vanilla Cream Cake recipe and add some almond flavoring – layer it with my White Chocolate buttercream 
• Champagne cake with strawberry mousse and champagne buttercream
  For the champagne, cake use my champagne cupcake recipe (just use the recipe card at the bottom of the post to change serving size and it will calculate the recipe for you) 
• Ginger spiced cake with vanilla & honey buttercream –
  For the ginger spiced cake use my gingerbread spice cake and add grated ginger for extra flavor. For honey buttercream- substitute some of the sugar in my vanilla buttercream with honey and omit the liquid. 
• Earl Grey cake with lavender flavored buttercream – add lavender flavoring to my vanilla buttercream to make a lavender flavored buttercream. 

Vanilla Bean Cake Recipe aka Perfect Vanilla Cake Recipe

Vanilla Cafe Latte Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting

Spiced Chai Latte Cake with Vanilla Bean Buttercream Recipe

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Recipe7

Flavors that go with Coconut Cakes (coconut is one of my favorite flavors)

• Coconut cake with rum-flavored chocolate buttercream – add rum instead of cream in my Chocolate buttercream frosting
• or Coconut cake with lemon/lime curd and maple buttercream
• Coconut Cake with pineapple cream and Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• and Coconut cake with dark chocolate fudge filling and Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Coconut cake with dulce de leche filling and chocolate fudge buttercream
• even Coconut cake with coconut cream filling and brown butter buttercream
• Toasted Coconut Cream Cake with coconut cream filling and Whipped Cream Buttercream
• Coconut cake with lemon curd and coconut cream buttercream

Red Velvet Cake

Strawberry Cake with SMBC

Lemon Cake with LSMBC

Orange Cake Recipe with Orange Swiss Meringue

Flavors that go with Banana Cakes

• Easy Banana Caramel Cake 
• Banana cake with salted caramel frosting
• Banana cake with caramel cream cheese frosting (add caramel to my no-butter cream cheese frosting)
• or Banana Cake with Nutella Buttercream
• Banana cake with coconut cream and Almond Buttercream
• Tropical Banana cake with pineapple cream and whipped cream buttercream.
• Banana Maple Cake with pecan praline filling and caramel buttercream.
• and Banana Blueberry Cake with blueberry filling and Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Caramel Apple Cake Recipe with Caramel Buttercream and Caramel S

Pumpkin Cream Cake 12

Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe, Chocolate Mud Recipe,

Chocolate Chiffon Cake with Kahlua Buttercream

Flavors that go well with Lemon Cake or Strawberry Cake

• Lemon cake with almond buttercream
• or Lemon cake with raspberry frosting and lemon buttercream
• Strawberry cake with banana mousse and strawberry buttercream
• Lemon cake with lemon curd and lemon buttercream
• Vanilla cake, raspberry filling, and white chocolate buttercream
• Orange cake with vanilla chai buttercream (infuse chai in the cream before adding to the buttercream)
• Try my Strawberry Cake with Velvet American Buttercream

Rainbow Cake Recipe, how to make a rainbow cake

One Bowl Chocolate Cake Recipe

One Bowl Vanilla Cake Recipe

Simple Moist Chocolate Cake (26)

Flavors that go with Chocolate Cake

• Chocolate pecan cake with mascarpone cream cheese frosting(use mascarpone for the cream cheese in the recipe)
• Dark chocolate cake with peanut butter frostings
• or Dark chocolate cake with mint buttercream
• Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache
• Cherry Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream*
• Chocolate Fudge cake with raspberry or white chocolate mousse and vanilla buttercream
• and Chocolate fudge cake with crushed Oreo buttercream
• Dark chocolate cake with orange, strawberry or raspberry buttercream
• German chocolate cake with pecan praline cream and dark chocolate ganache

Earl Grey Cake Recipe

Butterscotch Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Butterscot

Pumpkin Spice-Latte Cake with Maple Buttercream Frosting 24

Moist Red Velvet Cake

Matcha Flavor Combinations

• Matcha cake with coconut cream and matcha buttercream
• or Match pound cake with blueberry filling and Italian Meringue Buttercream
• Match chiffon cake with cream cheese frosting
• and matcha genoise with strawberry and whipped cream
• White chocolate matcha cake with matcha ganache.

Moist Strawberry Cake

Classic Ginerbread Cake Recipe

Vanilla Cream Cake Recipe

Moist Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake Flavor ideas for Fall

• Pumpkin Coconut Cake with coconut cream caramel
• or Pumpkin spice cake with chai latte buttercream
• Pumpkin maple cake with pecan filling and maple buttercream
• Fall spice cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 
• Apple spice cake with caramel filling and Swiss Meringue Buttercream
• Pumpkin cake with pumpkin pie filling and no butter cream cheese frosting 
• Pumpkin ginger cake with pumpkin spice buttercream
• Apple pear cake with apple pie filling and whipped cream buttercream
• Pumpkin white chocolate cake with pumpkin spice buttercream (add pumpkin spice to my vanilla buttercream frosting)
• Apple Pie Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream 
  

   

Best Carrot Cake with Apricot Swiss Meringue Buttercream4

Chocolate Ganache Chocolate Cake 2

Strawberry Cream Cake Recipe Blog 3

How to make Buttercream Flowers Progress Pictures15

How many different types of buttercream frosting are there? 

The number of frosting recipes can be overwhelming and sometimes confusing. In general, we can categories these as 

• Butter-based buttercream – simple all-purpose buttercreams like my velvet American buttercream, Vanilla buttercream (eggless) 
• Decorators buttercream – often with all or some vegetable shortening to prevent the frosting from melting easily like my Bakery style frostings – Vanilla and Chocolate frosting 
• Cream Cheese based – made with cream cheese often with or without butter like my classic cream cheese is made with butter which adds more stability and my no-butter cream cheese frosting when you want a more luxurious dessert type frosting.
• Meringue buttercream – made with the addition of whipped egg whites. Less sweet than the classic butter-based buttercream like my  Swiss Meringue or Italian Meringue 
• Egg-based buttercream – like the French Buttercream and German buttercream made with egg yolks then whipped to make a light and fluffy frosting with the addition of butter. 
• Whipped Cream Frosting – the lightest of them all is, of course, simple whipped cream. I shared 5 different methods to make whipped cream at home. As well as a whipped cream buttercream frosting. 

Strawberry Buttercream Recipe5

Classic French Buttercream Recipe22

Best German Buttercream Recipe26

Bakery Style Vanilla Frosting4

How to Create a Simple Cake Fillings Combination

Well, not all are straightforward but often creating these can be as simple as tweaking your basic vanilla buttercream recipe just a little. For example:

• Almond buttercream is just your vanilla buttercream with almond flavoring
• Mint buttercream – just a mint flavoring
• Lemon buttercream – replace the liquid in the recipe with some lemon juice when making vanilla buttercream
• and Nutella buttercream is just Nutella added to your vanilla buttercream too

Check out my post where I share how to make different buttercream flavors with one basic buttercream recipe.  As well as, my post; One Vanilla cake with many different flavors and One Chocolate cake with many different flavors.

Different Buttercream Flavors from One Buttercream Recipe

Why have just one buttercream flavor when you can try so many more. These simple, easy and effortless variations to create different buttercream flavors from one recipe will open new and wonderful possibilities for your future projects from strawberry to caramel, marzipan or kahula. You can use a basic American buttercream, meringue-based buttercream. 

How to combine Cake Flavors, Fillings and Frostings. Cake Flavor Combinations.

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