Anyone Here Ever Make a Checkerboard Cake....

[becca da bakkah]

....I found a complete, brand new, checkerboard cake set, well constructed, from Williams-Sonoma, at my local thrift store. Normally sells for $27, the tags were still on the box, I got it for $5. So, naturally, I had to try making a checkerboard cake yesterday. My mom used to make one, about once a year. I can see why she didn't do it more often. What a frustrating hair puller that was!

To say it didn't look anything like a checkerboard is an understatement, more like the markings on a Pinto horse! The taste is good, I used chocolate and yellow cake, and the frosting is great....although more milk chocolate than fudge. But no one would mistake it for a checkerboard. I make cakes about once or twice a year...bread baking is more my forte. Plus the damn thing kept sliding around while I was trying to frost it...all three layers. I even tried using chopsticks to anchor it, to no avail.

Anyone have any tips or suggestions on making a checkerboard cake that actually looks like a checkerboard?! You know, for when I actually try this again, in the next decade??

[Fresh_Start]

1. bake a pan of each flavor

If you are doing in round pans...cut into consecutive circles and swap the middle circle.

So one pan has three circles from outside in chocolate, vanilla, chocolate
the other has vanilla, chocolate, vanilla.

Stack and you get checkboard that looks like a checkboard.
https://www.mycakeschool.com/blog/lets-play-checkers/

[becca da bakkah]

2. Thanks. But How Would You Keep All Those....

....cake circles intact when you frost the layers? Another problem was when I removed the divider from the first pan, to use in the 2nd and 3rd, the cake batter dripped and ran on the batter already in the 1st pan, thus mixing chocolate and yellow where I didn't want it.

I like the tip about putting the cakes in the freezer to firm up. One suggestion, on the box of my checkerboard set, was to put the batter in the fridge for one hour to make it less runny. Wish I'd tried that!

[Fresh_Start]

3. i've done this...

gravity does most of the work....for keeping the circles together...

you can also do square cakes...you alternate stripes of each flavor and stack....thats a bit harder since the outer stripes tend to slide... so i've used toothpicks to hold them for frosting.....but circle is much easier

[becca da bakkah]

4. Cool....I Wish I'd Consulted With You....

....before the fact, rather than after. One good thing, though. The other day I noticed I only have one 8" cake pan. Now I have three, 9-inch. When it rains, it pours...I guess!

[Fresh_Start]

5. you got a bargain for 3 9" pans....

pat yourself on the back

[becca da bakkah]

11. Yes, I Am Feeling Rather Smug.....

...about that. Every time I go into a thrift store, I never find what I came for in the first place. But then something, totally out of the blue, almost jumps in my hands, begging to go home with me. Well, at least it wasn't a puppy!

[dem in texas]

13. Love finding treasure at the thrift store

I love to go to thrift stores and estate sales. I always head for the kitchen stuff to look for vintage gadgets or something that I have been needing and is to expensive at the stores. I am looking for some old shiny aluminum rectangular baking pans. They don't make the old kind anymore or if they do, they aren't the same. I like them to use for sheet cakes. I had two that I'd found at estate sales, but somehow, they are gone. Probably left at someone's house when I took a cake for a dinner.

I love to make cakes, but have never tried a checkerboard cake. Have made checkerboard cookies before, they are easy to make.

[becca da bakkah]

14. Agree On The Old Stuff. What They Make Today....

....just isn't the same. I have 3 old crock-pots I got at the thrift shop. I much prefer those over the newer models. The older CP's are set to slow-cook at a lower temperature, if I'm explaining the process correctly. That makes them perfect, in my opinion, for making yogurt. The newer ones are too warm and, thus, will kill the bacteria needed to make milk into yogurt. I've ruined too many batches that way, even on a low setting.

I read somewhere that the newer CP's--those made in the past 10-15 years, have a higher temperature to ensure bacteria doesn't grow in meat. Manufacturers were all freaked out that they could be sued for food poisoning, which never happened, so they changed the temperature settings on crock-pots. And, as a result, ruined them.

Just my two-cents.

[Fresh_Start]

6. confession...I also bought one of the checkerboard kits at a thrift shop

needless to say, I don't have it anymore

[becca da bakkah]

9. This One Looked So Gooood!.....

...I almost ate the picture on the outside of the box. My sister got the one my mom had, so when this one appeared, innocently sitting on the top shelf, tempting and seducing me, I felt like it was a sign. Of evil, as it turned out! Now I realize, maybe that's WHY those things are frequently found in thrift shops.

[msongs]

7. try some of these videos on youtube under "make a checkeboard cake" nt

[becca da bakkah]

10. Yeah, I Should Have Done That....

...But I've always been a read the directions kind of person, afterwards, to see where I screwed up! Then I spend half the day watching "related" videos on YT, or Keith Olbermann/Resistance videos. Or music I'd forgotten I haven't heard in 40 years. Then, next thing I know, it's 6 PM, and dinner isn't even started.

I also realize, I need a cake stand, and some of those cake board thingys. So then I'm on Amazon for hours researching that. Sigh....

[blaze]

12. Hahahahaha!!!!!

Sorry.

I couldn't help but laugh at your "related" research...so many shiny things!!!

I can relate all too well!

[SummerSnow]

8. Oh my. I hope it comes out good.

I never made it. It looks so hard to do.