Chess cake

In my family, virtually no important holiday is complete without a cake. Sometimes I bake according to favorite recipes that have been tried and tested for a long time, and sometimes I experiment.

This time the occasion was more than fundamental – my mother’s 55th birthday! Therefore, I decided to amaze her with not only a delicious, but also an unusual cake.

I’ll say right away that the idea was a success. All the guests were in ecstasy, and the mother said that she had never had such a beautiful cake! Words like these always inspire.

I suggest that you, dear readers, don’t be afraid and make a chess cake. In fact, everything is not as difficult as it seems at first.

If it’s still not creepy enough for you, or the company for tea drinking will be small, you can create half the norm - 2 shortcakes. I assure you, the cake will still look beautiful!

We, despite its impressive size, were left with a single piece the next day , which we happily shared among everyone over morning coffee!

Ingredients for chess cake

for 1 light shortbread

Testicles 3 pcs.
Sugar 100 g
Salt 1 pinch
Baking powder 1 tsp.
Premium wheat flour 100 g

for 1 chocolate shortcake

Testicles 3 pcs.
Sugar 100 g
Salt 1 pinch
Baking powder 1 tsp.
Premium wheat flour 80 g
Cocoa powder 2 tbsp. l.

for impregnation

Filtered water 50 ml
Alcohol 95% 1 tbsp. l.

for cream

Butter 450 g
Condensed milk 720 ml

for decoration

Chocolate glaze in drops 30 g

additionally

Vegetable oil 4 tbsp. l.
Flour 4 tbsp. l.

Chess cake recipe

I broke three eggs into a bowl because I decided to knead the dough for each shortbread separately.

You can also create it together. But while one shortbread is baking and the remaining dough is standing, it swells, becomes thicker, and later in the oven it may simply settle.

Added salt and sugar to the eggs.

You can increase the amount of sugar if desired, and it still turns out sweet.

Beat the sugar-egg mixture for 5-7 minutes - this is important. Added baking powder and beat again with a mixer.

I sifted the flour. She quickly beat the dough.

For this procedure, 15-20 seconds are enough for us. There is no need to beat longer after adding flour, otherwise the crust may settle during baking.

I greased the round pan with sunflower oil and sprinkled it with a little flour. She poured the dough into it.

Bake in the oven at 200ºC for 35-40 minutes. I checked the readiness with a skewer.

I prepared the dough for the chocolate shortcake literally the same way, I just added traditional cocoa powder to the beaten eggs with sugar, salt and baking powder, and then flour, but a little less than when kneading the light shortcake.

I also baked chocolate shortcakes separately – at 200ºC for 35-40 minutes.

Allow any shortbread to cool completely.

Now I cut any of the 4 baked and cooled biscuits into 3 parts.

To do this, I selected dishes of two different diameters. I tried to keep the distance from the edges approximately the same each time.

Having placed the first dish as a template, I cut the outline with a small knife. Then I did the same again with the smallest dishes.

From each shortbread came 3 circles - 2 with a hole inside, one without it.

I folded them in a checkerboard pattern, alternating light and chocolate circles.

In a separate bowl I combined water and alcohol. Soaked the shortcakes.

For impregnation, you can simply use ready-made vodka. It is better to take compote, tea, liqueur and anything that has at least some color, so as not to disturb the color of the cakes.

First, beat the softened butter.

Then I added condensed milk to it.

Beat again with a mixer.

When the cakes had had little rest after soaking, I began assembling.

Any composite cake was coated with cream and covered with the next one, alternating colors.

When all four cakes were placed, the remaining cream was used to cover the top and sides of the cake.

For decoration, I used chocolate glaze in drops - it is delicious, it is comfortable to decorate any desserts.

At first I laid out two anniversary fives in the center, and then I decorated the cake along the contour.

I left it to soak overnight (that is, in the dark) at room temperature. But, as with any biscuit, the longer it sits, the better!

Chessboard Cake

Now I'm making a Chessboard cake. The cake comes out very tasty, with tender curd cream, chocolate shortcakes and very beautiful. It literally does not go unnoticed on any table. Let's cook!

Chess cake

For the biscuit (the norm is given for 1, we bake 2 of them!)

Group 1 eggs – 3 pcs.
Sugar – 160 g
Vanilla sugar – 10 g
Milk – 120 g
Butter 82.5% – 60 g
Flour – 165 g
Baking powder – 6 g
A pinch of salt
Food coloring

For the curd cream

Natural cottage cheese – 250 g
Butter 82.5% – 180 g
Sweet powder – 100 g
Vanilla sugar – 10 g

For the top cream

Curd cream cheese – 400 g
Butter 82.5% – 100 g
Sweet powder – 100 g
Vanilla extract or vanilla sugar (optional)

Chess cake - delicious in taste and superbly beautiful to look at! With such a cake, you will probably amaze the avid sweet tooth and those who, it would seem, have seen everything!) We guarantee: guests will look at the cut for a long time, trying to understand: “How was this made anyway?!” But it’s not that difficult, in fact! If you know the secret! Right now we will reveal it! Step-by-step {instructions} with photos - below!)

Hello! Tori Pteat is in touch, and now I’ll tell you how I prepared a very tasty chess cake with a very beautiful cut! I’ll carefully outline everything and show you in the photo, give advice, proportions, and don’t forget to note what mistakes I made so that you don’t repeat them! In general, as always, I will teach you how to create tasty and beautiful things in your home kitchen using the most ordinary tools and affordable goods!

Let's bake biscuits!

For the chess cake, I chose a sponge cake with hot milk. I’ll say right away that maybe it was worth taking something that was the densest and least tender: the sponge cake made with hot milk was quite fragile and it was difficult to work with, the cell eventually moved out a little, but, in my opinion, the cut still came out beautiful and unusual, and the cake itself, despite its simple composition, is juicy and very tasty! With a dense biscuit, it’s not a fact that this would happen)

You need to bake two biscuits in contrasting colors. The colors can be anything, the main thing is different and perfectly combined. If you don’t want to use food coloring, you can create the most simple version: leave one sponge cake uncolored, and replace part of the flour with unsweetened cocoa powder on the second. You will have a traditional chess cake - vanilla and chocolate.

I wanted to create the most eye-catching inside of the cake, so I didn’t color one sponge cake, but added a couple of good drops of Americolor gel food coloring in the Electric Purple color to the second one. Of course, this does not affect the taste in any way, but the color comes out catchy and very beautiful, moreover, close to ultraviolet - the most fashionable color of 2018, according to Pantone.

This is what the dough was like.

I poured it into a mold and baked it.

The finished biscuit looks like this. Don't be alarmed: the crust is darker, the color fades on it, this is NORMAL. I still constantly cut off the crusts, even when I make ordinary cakes, but in the case of chess cakes, where the whole trick is in the cut, it is absolutely necessary to cut them off! There should not be any unnecessary inclusions, only the colors that we have chosen!

Remove the biscuit from the mold.

Turn upside down and wrap in cling film.

Leave it like this for 8 hours on the table or in the refrigerator.

Then cut into shortcakes. I cut it into three.

This is what the biscuit looks like on the inside.

I made the second sponge cake simply snow-white, without coloring it.

Curd cream!

It is better to prepare the cream before starting assembly. I decided to try cottage cheese. The cream is delicious and perfect for this cake! It’s not very dense and doesn’t hold its shape, so I recommend it for cakes with thin crusts that should actually be soaked in cream: various honey cakes, milk girl, Napoleons, crepeville, etc. In general, maybe I’m just not very I was lucky with the oil: usually I use 82.5%, but this time I took a very tasty, but 72.5%, and made sure that the property of the oil has a very specific effect on the stability of the creams! So ALWAYS use 82.5% natural butter for your own pastry tests!

Take a pack of butter (180 g) at room temperature, 100 g of sweet powder and 10 g of vanilla sugar, ground into powder in a coffee grinder.

Beat with a mixer at high speed until fluffy.

Perfectly grind in a blender 250 g of natural (without plant components), fresh and certainly DRY cottage cheese (not a cottage cheese product)! If the cottage cheese is wet (the water just separates and the packaging leaks), either do not buy it, or, if you do buy it, weigh it out overnight, like sour cream.

Grind very carefully so that no grains remain. It took me quite a long time to do this; the blender even got hot. If you don’t have a blender, you can rub the cottage cheese through a sieve; in fact, everyone used to do this.

Chess cake

Ingredients

Cool water – 4.5 tbsp.

Vanilla sugar – 1.5 sachets

Baking powder – 3 tsp.

Vegetable oil – 4.5 tbsp.

For cream:

Lemon juice – 6 tbsp.

Instant gelatin – 23 g

Vanilla sugar – 2 sachets

225 kcal
3 hours
3 hours

Photo of the finished dish

Step-by-step recipe with photos

I rarely cook complex and long cakes. An opportunity arose and I decided to try the chess cake because I had been looking at it for a long time. The cake is fun to make and not as difficult as I imagined it would be. Very tasty and fascinating in its presentation, the guests were amazed.

To prepare a chessboard-shaped cake, prepare the ingredients according to the list.

Separate the whites from the yolks, beat the whites with a mixer with cool water until fluffy foam.

While beating, add the yolks to the beaten whites and sugar. Add sifted flour with baking powder and beat until the dough becomes homogeneous.

Add cocoa and vegetable oil. Stir gently with a spatula until smooth. The dough does not have to fall.

Line the cake pan with baking paper, pour in the dough and smooth it out. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Check readiness with a wooden skewer.

While the cake is baking, prepare the cream: dilute gelatin in water, {instructions} are on the package.

Beat cottage cheese, sugar, milk, lemon juice with a blender.

The cake is baked, remove from the oven and cool.

Cut the cake into two layers.

The top crust must be divided into rings of similar thickness. I retreated 2 cm from the edge of the shortbread and made marks, then cut it evenly with a knife according to the marks.

Add dissolved gelatin to the curd mass and mix.

Beat the cream with vanilla sugar and add to the curd-gelatin mass, mix.

Place the bottom cake on a dish and place a ring on the mold so that the cream does not spill while it hardens.

Grease the crust with cream.

Place the shortbread rings alternating one at a time. Lay out the 1st, 3rd and 5th ring.

Fill the empty space between the rings with cream using a spoon or pastry syringe.

Place the remaining rings on top of the cake with the curd cream.

Fill the remaining voids with cream and coat 100% on top. My cream turned out to be runny and ran down the sides. Place the cake in the refrigerator and let it harden.

Create a template for cake decoration from paper. Cut strips 1.5-2cm wide and place on the cake in a checkerboard pattern.

Sprinkle cocoa on top of the cake.

You will get a chessboard. Refrigerate the cake and let it brew for 6-8 hours.