10 Best Fall Wedding Cake Flavors in 2024

Fall is the time for indulging in decadence, and fall wedding cakes tend to be heavier, richer, sweeter, spicier than summer cakes.

They often pay tribute to popular autumn drinks – pumpkin spice latte, chai, or tea with honey and ginger.

Fall wedding cake flavors sometimes bring up childhood nostalgia, replicating recipes beloved by our grandmothers. Think cinnamon apple cake or carrot cake.

However, not all autumn wedding cakes feature some sort of spice. Red wine chocolate, black forest, maple, and peanut butter cakes are a sweet luxury that may be excessive for summer days but just right for cold fall evenings.

1. Pumpkin Spice Cake

Many of us wait for autumn to arrive sooner only to drink pumpkin spice latte. If you’re also a fan of this spicy, warming drink, why not choose it as a flavor for your wedding cake?

A pumpkin spice latte cake is in a way similar to a carrot cake. The sponge is made with a mix of pumpkin, ginger, cloves, vanilla, and cinnamon, and the layering is typically cream cheese.

A pumpkin spice wedding cake is a perfect choice for weddings in rustic style. It doesn’t require sophisticated, intricate decoration. On the opposite, a pumpkin cake should look as if it was homemade.

A simple yet tasteful design is a white, textured cream surface with marzipan pumpkins or autumn flowers on top. Of course, you can opt for a more wedding-related decoration if you wish to but keep it simple.

2. Carrot Cake

Carrot cake is a classic recipe featuring carrot (obviously), cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, citrus zest, almonds or other nuts, and cloves.

Many people call the carrot cake their childhood favorite. However, it isn’t that common choice for weddings.

Like pumpkin spice cake, a carrot cake will suit rustic and bohemian weddings. Carrot cake design is typically minimalistic, featuring a smooth white surface with bright accents such as marzipan sunflowers or orange cream swirls.

If you’d like to surprise guests, opt for unusual carrot cake variations, for instance, with peaches, lime, candied fennel, or meringue coating instead of traditional cream cheese.

Carrot cake cupcakes are an excellent option for a buffet-style wedding.

3. Cinnamon Apple Cake

Apple and cinnamon combination is a timeless classic and a recipe familiar to each one of us since childhood. Perhaps, you’ve baked a cinnamon apple cake at least once in a lifetime. It’s the perfect DIY-wedding cake.

This slightly sour, spicy, and moderately sweet cake will remind your guests of late evenings near a fireplace. The taste is warming and rich, always resembling homemade even if it was made by a top-rated baker – in a good sense.

Traditional cinnamon apple cake may seem not formal and elegant enough for many brides, and it’s justifiable. But if you cover the cake with buttercream, cream cheese, or meringue, it will look much more sophisticated.

You don’t have to go for the classic recipe at all – instead, use the flavor combination in modern textures, such as curd, jelly, or mousse.

4. Spiced Pear Cake

Pumpkin, carrot, or cinnamon apple cakes are without a doubt delicious, but they are a rather obvious choice for a fall wedding. A spiced pear cake, in turn, is a more unusual flavor that also carries a unique autumn atmosphere.

Pears are softer, more delicate, and sweeter than apples, while spice provides the warmth necessary in cold autumn months. Pear matches the best with cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, and cardamom.

Spiced pear wedding cakes are often topped with marzipan or genuine pears covered in caramel, maple, or chocolate glaze. Walnuts or pecan are the second most popular decoration choice for this recipe.

Such a cake doesn’t necessarily have to follow the traditional sponge and buttercream formula. Genoise, chiffon, or angel food cake with caramelized, spiced pear layering is a creative and even more tasty option.

5. Vanilla & Salted Caramel Cake

If you have a sweet tooth, you will likely appreciate vanilla and salted caramel cake. Thanks to the warm colors, vanilla and salted caramel cake flawlessly matches the fall season.

The possible texture varieties are endless – most importantly, the cake should have a distinctly salty but sweet taste.

Liquid salted caramel goes perfectly with traditional vanilla buttercream, though chocolate sponge layered with caramel cream is no less delicious, resembling a Snickers bar.

If you prefer more balanced sweetness, opt for caramel mousse on vanilla chiffon.

The best toppings are caramelized pears, nuts, pretzels, chocolate figurines, vanilla cream swirls, or elegant caramel drips. Don’t go overboard with caramel on top, though, as not all of your guests may enjoy such a sugar bomb.

6. Maple Butter Cake

Maple butter cake is a fresh take on one of the most popular wedding cake flavors, vanilla buttercream. Buttery, dense, sweet sponge cake with maple syrup tastes like a warm hug in a cold fall park.

Maple butter cake gives you freedom of design choices and thus can suit any wedding style. For example, for a rustic wedding, choose cake covered in buttercream swirls with maple syrup drips – it should look as if it was homemade.

If you’re looking for a more intricate design, opt for a textured surface and realistic or real flowers, autumn fruits, or small spruce branch accents.

Maple goes especially well with pecan and walnuts, so a simple, smooth white cake with nuts on top will look no less stunning.

7. Ginger Lemon Honey Cake

Not all fall wedding cake flavors are sweet or spicy. If you’re more of a sour-lover, a ginger lemon cake will be a creative and heavenly delicious choice. Honey balances the taste and brings in associations with warm tea.

If you like the flavor combination but don’t want the cake to be overly sour, choose meringue topping or add some lemon into a traditional layered honey cake.

If you, on the opposite, want to enhance the sour notes, choose a sponge cake with a thin honey layer and lemon and ginger curd.

Dried lemon slices or chocolate honeycombs will be the most suitable decoration for such a cake, giving guests a hint of the flavor. However, more conventional wedding cake toppings such as flowers and figurines will also look great.

8. Black Forest Cake

Black forest cake is often considered a winter flavor, but I believe that it fits late autumn with its melancholic romance just as beautifully.

If you’re unfamiliar with the recipe, the black forest cake is a chocolate sponge cake with chocolate ganache and sour cherry filling, often topped with whipped cream. It has a vibrant and moderately sweet taste.

Black forest cake is a chic alternative to more popular fall wedding cake flavors such as cinnamon-apple or maple. It will suit weddings in any style, from bohemian to glam.

The black forest cake design demands something in dark brown, white, or black colors with red accents. Dripping dark chocolate on a smooth white cream surface topped with black cherries is the first example that comes to mind.

Thanks to a neutral, classic color combination, the black forest cake will also make a perfect base for the most intricate decorations, such as chocolate lace or realistic marzipan figurines.

Alternatively, you can go for a modern, bright red glazed cake resembling a candied cherry.

9. Red Wine Chocolate Cake

Red wine chocolate cake is yet another non-conventional fall wedding cake flavor.

Smooth dark chocolate and rich, slightly sour red wine give this cake an indulgently sweet taste and moist texture. It’s the perfect comfort food for crisp fall weather.

An example of a perfect design for such a cake is dark chocolate glaze topped with red berries and white chocolate lace on the sides.

Most importantly, the decorations should be just as elegant, minimalistic, yet sophisticated as the flavor.

Red wine cake is, perhaps, the best fit for weddings in gothic style. This flavor combination carries a unique decadent vibe and looks astonishing in black sugar coating with red accents.

Cinnamon, cloves, or cardamom added to the wine-chocolate mixture will make the cake even more warming, resembling mulled wine.

Bear in mind that cake with red wine is not the best flavor for small children, even if the alcohol content is low. Make sure to offer children attending the wedding a different dessert – preferably, not less chocolatey.

10. Peanut Buttercup Cake

Peanut buttercup cake is an excellent fall wedding cake choice for all peanut butter admirers. Its intense sweet and salty flavor won’t leave your guests indifferent.

Perhaps, the most popular version of peanut buttercup cake is a chocolate sponge cake layered with peanut buttercream. However, this isn’t the only cake recipe featuring peanut butter.

Instead of peanut butter cream, you can opt for chocolate ganache with peanut buttercup pieces or a sponge cake layered with smooth goober butter and chocolate paste.

And if you don’t want the cake to be too sweet… choose a different cake! I’m joking.

To balance the sweetness, you can replace chocolate sponge and heavy peanut buttercream with mousse. Mousse cakes are much lighter and less sweet than sponge cakes.

They are typically made in a modern round design with a glossy surface.