Checkerboard cake (made without any special pan )

Wedding Anniversary special- Checkerboard cake

  When I ate Kitkat ,I got bewitched  ...as I got the curse it carries with it,"Have a break,Have a kitkat "! in my case as always it was vice-versa though :0))...and that's how & why I was on a break :P......well,kitkat apart :P,it's been a while since I did any mishmash , any golmaal here in my virtual home..I thought of sparing everyone with my yada yada yada for a while because your brain doesn't taste yummy anymore..so I stopped eating it for a while but I am back to eat your brain,steal your heart,shake your hands and rock and roll....wat sayy ??...

Well,last week was one "HELLuva" one ....I was not well ...still my mood is swinging to and fro ...but my baby blog felt abandoned,was crying for my immediate attention ....and that's untolerable and I understand afterall,"The show must go on"........and moroever,it was our wedding anniversary so like every year it's must for me to bake and make something special for my better half for making me the best half this day ;P (actually it's the other way :P)....so,I am glad I had no choice but to roll up my sleeves,get my b..body off :D,make my hands dirty and my wonder kitchen smell wonder full ....

This time I wanted to make it extra special by baking one of a kind cake and a menu unusual and lip smacking....So,the menu of the day was Spicy Kerala Crab curry,Kappa/tapioca,Ivy Gourd stir-fry/kovekya thoran with hot rice and the dessert of the day was, "The checkerboard cake" ,which I always wanted to bake once for sure....and I did...and the best part of it is baking without using any specific fancy pan , piping those roses and making those dolls representing me &honey P using cake fondant was super fun  (hope they do look like dolls though:D )....to be frank I was skeptical in the beginning about the checkboard cake but the outcome certainly blew my doubts away ...and I send half of the cake to hubby's workplace and everyone loved it but he was little sad ..I asked ,"Why?" ...he said he didn't even get a single piece :P...but he was v.glad that I did save a slice or two for him aside :D...(Bu then that's all he eats!)

This is certainly a foolproof recipe but needs more patience and effort ..all you need are a batter divided into a vanilla one and a chocolate one and two piping bags with each batter and three round pans to make three cakes in three layers respectively - 2 cakes with chocolate batter+vanilla batter+chocolate batter (again)and the third cake with the vanilla batter,chocolate batter and vanilla batter (again)and then stacking three cakes after frosting each one of them and finally frosting the entire cake with the chocolate frosting and when you slice it..tadaaaa...the cake just got transformed into an edible checkerboard..so are you ready to play ??

Checkerboard cake 

Inspired by Goodhousekeeping's 

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 2 cups

Baking powder - 2 teaspoon

Salt - 1/2 teaspoon

Sugar - 1 1/2 cup

Eggs ,large - 4 nos.

Butter ,room temperature- 3/4 cups / 1 1/2 sticks

Vanilla essence/extract - 1 1/2 teaspoon

Milk - 2 tablespoons

Semi sweet chocolate,melted - 1/2 cup

Unsweetened chocolate,meted - 1/2 cup

Chocolate frosting as needed

Cake fondant ,a ball size

Edible colors as needed - I used black,red,golden,light brown

Icing for making roses ,2 piping bags - red color and yellow color

Tip 12 and tip 104 and a flower nail

square cuts of parchment paper

white and green edible pearls

Method:The video will give you the idea-

 OR,

• Preheat oven to 350 degree F and grease the pans ,dust the flour and keep it ready aside.
• In a medium bowl,mix together the flour,baking soda and salt and keep aside.
• In a large deep bowl, beat butter and sugar until well blended with a mixer at low speed.Then increase the speed to high ,beat until it becomes light and creamy for 5 minutes approx.
• Reduce the speed to medium low and add one egg at a time and beat well after each addition.
• Reduce the speed to low,add the flour mixture and the milk (1 tablespoon) and beat it until smooth .
• Pour half of the batter into another bowl and mix melted chocolate and milk (1 tablespoon) into it. So,now you've two bowls - one with vanilla batter and other with chocolate batter.
• Now take two large piping bags and fill each one of them with vanilla and chocolate batter respectively and make 1/2 inch opening in each of them .
• Pipe 1 1/2 large inch wide band of chocolate batter around inside edge of two greased pans ,followed by piping 1 1/2 large inch wide band of vanilla batter and the third center layer filled with the chocolate batter in those two pans.
• Similarly in the third pan,do the opposite,alternating rings of batter starting with vanilla,then chocolate then center again with vanilla.
• Place two pans on a single rack and the last one on the second rack of the oven so that they all are not directly above each other.Bake them for 20 minutes or toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.Allow them to cool on racks for 10 minutes.
• Loosen the cakes carefully and invert onto wire racks to cool off properly.
• Place one of the identical cake on a cake plate and apply chocolate frosting all over and top it with the non-identical cake and frost it completely.Top with the third cake and frost the entire cake properly.
• I placed my dolls with toothpicks into the cake and covered with my red and yellow roses and edible green pearls.

I made dolls like this using cake fondant- Let the pics speak for themselves...

I froze them for a day

 I piped roses referring this Youtube video ...I know I've to improve a lot in making perfect roses ...

I saved a slice just for U...

Hope you'll like it.Hope you all are doing well.

Love,