Week 20: Patterns - Checkerboard Cake [Baking]

Intro from Baking Challenge: This challenge is not so much about taste, but looks. You can take pretty much any baked good and punch it up with some fancy decorative patterns. And obvious example is pie crusts or icing techniques. Sugar cookies with royal icing are also excellent. Some fun ones to try out could be this heart patterned cheesecake, a leopard print cake or a nice summery fruit tart. Have fun!

I knew I wanted to do a checkerboard cake ever since the Week 20 challenge topic was announced - They're one of my favorite pieces of baking sorcery! People are always so confused at how to get the checkerboard pattern inside the cake, but it's actually really easy!

To start, you need four equally-sized round cakes in two colors.  Once they've cooled, you'll want to level them with a bread knife or cake leveler (if you're fancy) so all four are flat and roughly the same thickness.

Next, using bowls/cookie cutters/whatever you have that can help you cut circular shapes, cut each cake into concentric rings.  You can do as many or as few rings as you like, as long as you do the same number/thickness/diameter on all the cakes.  For a really nice checkerboard pattern, I recommend making the thickness of each ring about the same as the thickness of the overall layer.  Carefully separate the rings and create your layers with alternating colors, like making bulls eyes.

When you've got your layers prepared, the next step is to build your cake.  Stack your layers so the colors alternate (aka first layer with blue outer ring, second layer with red outer ring, etc.), putting a thin layer of frosting between each layer to help hold. Do an initial crumb coat of icing, ice the full cake, and you're done!

When you cut into the cake, you'll see the checkerboard pattern!  I used blue and red velvet cake batter and iced with cream cheese icing. A little shout out to my New York Rangers, who made it to the NHL conference finals last night!