Once you stop to think about how to combine flavors into the perfect dessert, you realize that choosing which cake to bake involves a few different steps. In my opinion, you have four basic possibilities: the body (or base), the dominant, the complement, and the finisher.
The body (the cake type or basic recipe you use, which I refer to as the base of the cake—only including the types of flour, fats, eggs, leaveners, liquids—including dairy such as milk, cream, yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream, or sour milk—and sugar you use, added to the method of mixing and baking, minus any speciality flavors that get in the batter, such as citrus juice, crushed nuts or extracts—which provides two parts: first, the texture; second, the “base” or background of your flavor palette)
The dominant flavor (how you flavor the batter; includes the juice, nuts, extracts etc excluded above; of course, you could choose to let the “base” note shine through by using a familiar extract like vanilla or almond)
The complement flavor (usually the frosting flavor, although it could be a non-soluble addition in the cake, such as whole nuts or dried fruit; used to contrast or heighten the base and dominant flavors through the power of juxtaposition; if the cake batter has multiple flavors, the less intense flavor would count as the complement)
The finisher (optional; a minor flavor, in small quantities; either a gentle note that pulls the whole cake together or a top note that creates interest and variety; often in the form of a topping placed on the top or pressed into the sides, an additional icing flavor, an unblended inclusion in the frosting, any other topping on the cake, or additional garnishes plated or served with the cake; if a special filling is used that does not match the flavor of the frosting, it counts as a finisher, such as mousses, jams, creams, and caramels)
In my latest cake, the Chocolate Buttermilk Coffee Cake, the buttermilk cake was my base (the body of the cake); chocolate was the dominant flavor (the flavor of the cake); coffee buttercream the complement (the frosting), and hazelnut spread the finisher (the filling). As this example illustrates, sometimes, the only real difference between the complement and the finisher is quantity (you have more of the complement than the finisher), although, in a really thoughtful cake, there will be a rhyme and reason as to why one complements and one finishes.
What I would like to call a “concept cake” integrates these four levels purposefully in the early planning stages. Instead of lighting on one specific flavor-layer combo (say, lemon filling) and then building the rest of the cake around that single flavor, you arrange your choices around a unifying idea. An antioxidant cake would be a dark chocolate blueberry cake; a sunrise cake could be an orange cake with lemon frosting; a garden cake could have layers of rose, lavender, and chamomile cake; a teashop cake could use black tea layers (sugared with honey) with Devonshire cream frosting, piped with jam-infused buttercream.
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