I Bake For Attention: Chessboard Cake

OMG SO IMPRESSIVE.

Is what your friends will be saying about this kickass cake. Now, mine never turns out *quite* how it is supposed to, but c’est la vie. It is meant to be a well demarcated "chessboard" pattern inside when cut, but mine never looks like that. However, it looks cool and tastes amazing, I call it ‘lava lamp’ cake and everyone is happy.

..And it relatively simple to make, all you need is a couple of cake tins, some piping bags and the will to impress.

I had a teensy bit of cake batter left over which I would PERISH before throwing out, so I also piped a few cupcakes.

I would hope that this blog conveys the real way that I cook (ie: occasionally by the seat of my pants!). I don’t always have everything to hand, I improvise, there's flour everywhere, I photograph on auto and then I share and EAT.

The war/prep-zone

Makes one cake and a few cupcakes

Adapted from the Great British Bakeoff Cookbook

Ingredients for the cake

350g unsalted butter
350g caster sugar
1.5 tsp vanilla sugar
6 room temperature eggs
350g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
30g cocoa powder
4 tbsp milk

Ingredients for the white ganache

100g white chocolate, chopped
100ml cream

Ingredients for the chocolate ganache

200g dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
300ml cream

Method

Oven at 180 degrees.

Begin by making the cake batter. Measure out the sugar and butter and beat together until lighter in colour and fluffy. Add in the vanilla.

Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, with a tbsp of flour with each egg addition. Fold in the rest of the flour and mix well.

Divide the mixture into two bowls, and to one bowl add the cocoa and 2 tbsp of milk, folding until all incorporated. Spoon into a piping bag. For the white cake mixture, fold in the milk and place in a separate piping bag.

You can see the prepped piping bag in the background

Ready to pipe!

As you can see, I use disposable piping bags, as they require no cleaning after. Normally I take two together and slice off from about 1.5cm from the tip. I then fold over the smaller opening slightly and place it in a large glass, allowing me to unfold the bag and giving a large area for the cake batter to go. I then spoon in the mixture, and because the bottom end is slightly folded over, it won’t spill out the end.

Pipe a ring of chocolate mixture on the outer edge of one of the tins, and a ring of vanilla in the outer edge of two of the tins. Continue to pipe alternate rings until you have something resembling a strange archery target.

It normally looks best with 4 alternating rings of batter.

I did the same, on a smaller scale, for the cupcakes, filling the cases 2/3 full.

Bake for 22 minutes, until risen and a knife comes out clean. Bake the cupcakes for appox 17 minutes.

Turn onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

To make the white chocolate ganache, heat the cream in a saucepan until nearly boiling, and pour over the chopped white chocolate.

Let sit for 1 minute then stir until all the chocolate has melted. You may need to let it sit for up to 30 minutes, and refrigerate it to get it to the right, spreadable, consistency. For the dark chocolate ganache the method is identical.