Inspiration cake from Project Wedding

My good friend Markianna is getting married in August and she has asked me to make her wedding cake. I’m very excited and have been making all kinds of plans and doing wedding cake research – how to stack it, decorate it, move it, cut it… It’s a small wedding (only about 55 people) and the “inspiration cake” (above) is quite simple and rustic, so baking and decorating it should be fairly straight-forward.

It’s not like I have to make a 7-tiered cake to feed 360 (really, Martha has DIY instructions for this!):

Or paint a stained glass design on it:

Or pipe swirls and grape clusters all over it:(This one is made by Margaret Braun, who is a cake superstar. I have her book. It is AMAZING.)

Thank goodness for that.

No, for me, the overwhelming part is not the making or decorating of the cake. The overwhelming part is deciding on what kind of cake to make. The bride and groom have given me free-reign in the flavour department (one less thing for them to worry about, and apparently I’m “the expert”), but of course now I am paralysed with indecision about what flavours to choose. So, people of the internet, I am relying on you: please tell what kind of cake I should make!

Keeping in mind that I want the cake to look pretty when sliced (ie, colour contrast) and also that I want the outer layer of frosting to be white (I think!), the combinations that I have come up with are as follows:

1) Lemon cake with raspberry compote filling and cream cheese frosting (or plain white buttercream?)

2) Butter cake with caramel and chocolate fillings and vanilla buttercream frosting (or maybe chocolate?)

3) Coconut cake with chocolate filling and white buttercream frosting (or 7-minute frosting?), decorated with shredded coconut curls

4) Chocolate cake with mocha filling and vanilla buttercream frosting (or maybe chocolate?)

So which one should I make? Please leave your feedback in the comments!