How come I keep getting drawn back to the Talking Cake?

Last night I kept thinking of ways to remake the Talking Cake, but give it a more realistic, darker tone. That unfortunately means no more magical elements (witches, troll demons, fairies, ect). I had even revised an alternate version of the book just to make it more realistic. Cause I recently got a comment saying how the witches thing was too overused, and I realized that the Talking Cake was pretty cliched. Now there is a very low chance that I will fall through with my darker Talking Cake thing (I don't know if I will even keep the whole cake thing). I'm still doubting my writing ability, and so far my ideas are pretty dark and wouldn't make it a childrens book (more of a teen novel). I mean my ideas are REALLY dark. Here is one of my current ideas:
1. Years before the events of the Talking Cake (you know when Nohavia was still there), Prince Will had an affair with Carlisa (who will be rewritten as a warrior princess of another country). When Will dumped her, she went crazy and convinced her father to invade Nohavia (saying that Will had abused her and that was a reason to invade the country). During the invasion, Nohavia's king and queen are killed. Will manages to escape but knows that a majority of Nohavia's citizens are enslaves and or dead (I know that sounds cliche, but lets continue). Trevor (who Carlisa know has a fancy for) is taken captive by Carlisa and goes off the map for a while. *now we all know that he escapes, but that's pretty obvious.
2. Daisy will be taken out of the book because I feel that she mainly served as a love interest for Will, rather than a vital part of the story. Claire will be the female lead (I always liked Claire better). Claire will be (like in the original) a good fighter (but not a witch). I had a tiny idea of making Claire either a old friend of Carlisa (whom Carlisa now hates) or even make Claire Carlisa's sister (banished duh). You know just to add some depth to the characters and make the Claire/Carlisa rivalry a little more interesting.

Yah my ideas do sound pretty cliche, but at least I'm trying. I'll make a Talking Cake remake when I feel more confident about my writing. First I gotta read a whole lot of teen fantasy fiction (you know to try to base my writing style off of theirs to get the true feel of writing a mature fantasy). I may or may not keep Claire and Carlisa as witches, you know just to keep the fantasy genre in the book. Who knows, but I still think that I won't 'raise the Talking Cake'. But you guys can stay hopeful.