Okay, so I’m kind of back to square one with my father-in-law’s wedding cake and I’m pretty happy about it. Let me explain!

The photos below are the inspiration cakes my father-in-law’s fiancé sent me. I noticed that all the cakes have fondant on them, which isn’t a problem because it’s pretty easy to mold and work with. In case anyone is wondering, fondant is an edible icing used to decorate cakes. It kind of has the consistency of play dough, but makes cakes have the extra smooth and polished look to them.

I made a trial layer cake last week just to goof around with the fondant, amount of cake dough needed, etc., and had them try the cake. I wasn’t surprised when they were totally weirded out by fondant because I’ve never met anyone that’s like “I love the taste and texture of fondant!” haha. It’s just weird, but makes cakes look flawless.

After talking, they decided they want a frosting that is smooth on the cake but also tastes good and doesn’t feel like eating play dough, so that’s where I’m at! My father-in-law really likes my buttercream recipe, so I’m going to do something along those lines. As for the look of the cake, they want it to say “ride with me forever” and have Harley Davidson colors.

Right now, we are nailing down cake flavors before I start making tiered cakes with decorations again. Since the cake is going to be three layers, they have a lot of options! I think I’m going to make either a few small cakes or cupcakes in a variety of flavors for them to test out one evening and then they can decide what they want for each layer.

Here are my flavor combination ideas

• Strawberry cake + vanilla pastry cream filling + marshmallow buttercream
• Chocolate cake + caramel mousse filling + chocolate frosting
• White (vanilla and almond flavored) cake + strawberry preserves filling + marshmallow buttercream
• Lemon cake + lemon curd filling + lemon buttercream

If you have any flavor combo suggestions, let me know! I wanted to do some “different” cake flavors (think: lemon rosemary, lavender-honey, mocha banana, etc.), but I don’t know if that’s very wedding-y.

Okay, onto the Trader Joe’s finds! I just went today to pick up groceries (yup, still cheating on Aldi over here!) and found some things I’m excited to try.

Up first is the cranberry maple nut granola, which I think would be so good with a bowl of yogurt or milk. In the middle are bite sized everything crackers, and on the right is one of my all-time favorite cereals, Puffins!

I also picked up peanut butter (and already dug in the jar the second I got home…), red split lentils, sourdough bread, and blueberry acai facial scrub.

When I saw the lentils, I immediately thought of a soup recipe by Aarti Sequeira that I’ve been wanting to try, and the bread will be great to dip into the soup and use for sandwiches. I’m pumped to try the facial scrub. I just recently bought this (highly rated!) clay mask and this toner, so I think I’m all set to do an at-home facial!

Do you ever buy groceries from Trader Joes? If so, what’s your favorite TJ’s product?

If I had to pick, I’d say mine is their sunflower seed butter!