Cake “Chess”. Chess cake - the perfect dessert for any celebration How to make a chess cake
Chessboard cake is an option for those who are not looking for the easy way out! 😀 Although, there’s no need to be scared here either. The main thing is to have a clear algorithm in front of your eyes, then difficulties can be avoided. Actually, this is exactly what my recipe for today is designed for.
I already told you about my love for baking with a similar design in the recipe for my 30th birthday 😉 This same cake is the third in my practice. Before this, there were two options of 4 round cakes. And this time I thought about the fact that square cakes in this case are more relevant, because the board is not round! 😀
If you don't have a square baking pan, you can use a rectangular one. You just need to adjust the parameters when cutting the biscuit into “spare parts”. Two years ago, I bought myself a square stainless steel mold with a side of 21-22 cm. I found this shape very interesting, despite the fact that I have three rectangular molds of different sizes. And I was not disappointed. During this time, I baked not only cakes and pies in it, but also casseroles, including pasta.
So, a square chess cake...
To prepare it, you need to bake an even number of cakes. Make half of them light, half chocolate. I settled on two cake layers, so I baked one regular sponge cake and one with added cocoa.
Why should there be 2 or 4 cakes (if you want a tower, then 6)? Because we will combine their parts with each other. From one we will cut out 4 squares - one, the smallest, solid and three with a hole of the appropriate shape inside. And from the second one too. And then we will assemble two cake layers, arranging these parts of the sponge cake in a checkerboard order: light - chocolate - light - chocolate, and in reverse order for the second.
How to cut these biscuit squares? The diagram will help you! Shaded areas - chocolate biscuit, without shading - light. In order for the squares of the chessboard to turn out even, you need not just cut the cakes by eye, but arm yourself with a ruler. It is better to start cutting not from the center, but from the edge of the biscuit. The amount of indentation is easy to calculate - you need to divide the side of your shape in centimeters by 8 (because there are 4 squares, cm diagram), we get the result in the same unit of measurement. I have 21 cm/8 = 2.62 cm. But when cutting the biscuit, it’s not down to hundredths 😀 So I rounded it up a little, it turned out to be 2.6 cm.
And for greater effect and resemblance to a chessboard, you can make a stencil and use it to decorate the top of the cake with alternating light and dark squares. Well, enough about the external side of things at this stage! Let's also talk about taste - after all, it should match the appearance! 😉
I baked a light sponge cake for this cake according to the classic recipe, deviating only on one point - traditionally reducing the amount of sugar. Standard for 3 eggs and a glass of flour is 1 glass (full) of sugar. It's too sweet for my taste, because there will be more cream! But you do as you are used to. I chose the cream, which is also very popular - simple, quick and tasty - I am, of course, talking about the tandem of condensed milk and butter! Well, let's get down to business already?! 😉
For the light sponge cake:
- eggs - 3 pieces
- salt - 0.5 tsp.
- baking powder - 1 tsp.
- premium wheat flour - 1 cup
*
For the chocolate sponge cake:
- eggs - 3 pieces
- salt - 0.5 tsp.
- sugar - 120 g (can be increased to 220 g)
- baking powder - 1 tsp.
- cocoa - 3 tbsp.
- premium wheat flour - 1 cup without 3 tbsp.
* 1 cup = 200 ml liquid = 125 g flour
For impregnation:
- vodka - 1 tbsp.
- boiling water - 30 ml
- milk (cold) - 50 ml
For cream:
- butter - 250 g
- condensed milk - 1 can (380 g)
For registration:
- chocolate (dark) - 40 g (8 cloves)
For the template (available tools):
- cardboard or hard sheet of paper
- ruler
- pencil
- scissors
Chess cake step by step:
Beat the eggs with salt for two minutes, starting at low speed and up to maximum.
Gradually add sugar and beat for 2-3 minutes at high speed.
Mixed flour with baking powder and sifted them together.
Beat for 15 seconds - no longer necessary for the sponge cake to fall off afterwards! Pour the dough into a pan greased with a thin layer of oil. I sprinkled it with a little flour because it can sometimes be difficult to remove from this mold (it's made of chrome steel).
I put it in the oven, preheated to 100"C. I immediately set the temperature to 200"C. After 20 minutes, I lowered the setting to 160 degrees and baked for another 15 minutes. I did not open the oven door throughout the entire process. But if your top gets too fried, you can cover the top of the sponge cake with foil. But this should be done no earlier than 20 minutes from the start of baking, otherwise the cake will settle.
For the chocolate cake, as for the light cake, first beat the eggs with salt for two minutes, and then beat with sugar for another three minutes until fluffy foam.
Separately, I combined flour (a glass without three tablespoons) with classic cocoa powder and baking powder. Mixed thoroughly.
Sifted the chocolate-flour mixture into the egg mixture. Beat for 15 seconds.
Bake for 35 minutes at the same temperature.
Place the biscuits on wire racks to cool completely.
I placed the sponge cakes on top of each other. You can cut them separately, but together, perhaps, it turns out more accurately.
So, the side of my biscuits is 21 cm. Since there are 4 squares, I divided by 8. It turned out 21/8 = 2.62 cm.
Stepping back approximately 2.6 centimeters on each side, I cut a square outline with a knife.
Set aside the outer contour of each biscuit. I worked on the remaining squares. Here, too, making indentations 2.6 cm from the outer edge, I cut out the outline.
From the remaining squares I cut out the centers - squares 5.2 x 5.2 cm.
Now we're practically playing with cubes! ;) We fold both cake layers, alternating light and dark parts of the sponge cake.
To soak it in, I added a spoonful of vodka to the cold milk. Then added boiling water and stirred.
Spread the mixture onto both cake layers on each side with a spoon. I left it to soak for 30 minutes. If you have time, you can let them sit for longer, for example, two hours.
I love coffee soaking (a little less - tea). But in this case, this is not an option, because it will turn out dark and will paint over the light cake layer with its pigment, ruining the whole idea. So I took the milk.
When the biscuits were soaked, I started making the cream. Condensed milk was added to the butter, which had already been taken out of the refrigerator in advance and was already very softened.
Beat at maximum speed until smooth.
I placed the assembled chess cake on the cake stand and generously coated it with cream (a little less than half of the total amount).
I applied the second checkerboard sponge cake layer.
First I coated the sides of the cake well, then covered the top with the remaining cream. You can leave a spoon for touching up the roughness at the end.
While the cake is soaking, you can start making a template for the top of the cake!
I used cardboard for this, but you can just use thick paper. Both have their pros and cons. Cardboard is more convenient at the stage of using the template - it is tougher. But at the preparation (cutting) step it is more difficult. With paper it's the other way around - it's easier to cut, but less convenient to use. However, all these difficulties can be overcome.
In theory, you can make as many cells as you like on top. But I decided to follow the path of naturalism :) Therefore, the choice fell on a “board” of 8 x 8 cells. Due to the layer of cream, the side of the cake increased from 21 to almost 22 cm. Therefore, I made a large square with a side of 22 cm. Divided by 8, it turned out that the side of each cell was 22/8 = 2.75 cm. I drew it.
Now I think that it was in vain that I did not make indents on the sides (sides) of the large square (outline). If the template were framed, it would be much more convenient to use.
I cut out the cells in a checkerboard pattern. I used small scissors for this. But I cut it so that the stencil did not fall apart into separate squares. Therefore, I cut next to the lines, and not along them.
I placed the template on the cake.
Grate the chocolate on a fine grater (if it doesn’t grate well, put it in the refrigerator or freezer for a few minutes). You can take any chocolate except white, otherwise the meaning will be lost. The more cocoa it contains, the better.
I poured chocolate through the stencil into the free cells. It squashed a little.
I took the template off the cake. I did this very, very carefully so that the chocolate chips did not get on the light cells of the cream.
The template absorbed the cream a little, but I tidied it up, dried it and left it until better times, maybe it will come in handy;)
In some places the cream on the cake was slightly deformed, I carefully smoothed it out.
The best option is to leave the cake overnight at room temperature for better soaking. But my plans for eating it suddenly changed - the time was postponed and moved to a later time. And the weather was warm. I decided to put the cake in the refrigerator immediately to increase its shelf life. In this mode it soaked much longer.
This is what it looks like in cross-section - the Chessboard cake! ;) How do you like it?
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Mix the dry ingredients for the chocolate cake, except sugar.
Salt the whites. Beat them into a dense foam with a fifth of the specified sugar.
Mix the yolks with hot water.
Start beating, adding vanilla and regular sugar little by little until the mixture turns white.
Combine the whipped egg white and yolk mixtures. Add sifted flour and cocoa in parts.
Add vegetable oil last.
Pour the homogeneous biscuit-chocolate mass into the mold.
At 180 degrees and the top and bottom heat on, the biscuit will bake in 40-45 minutes. Leave the cake to cool on a wire rack.
Wrap the cold sponge cake in film and leave it like that for 4-8 hours - this will allow you to accumulate moisture and not dry out the baked goods.
Cut the sponge cake into 2 parts, one of which should be 2 cm high, and the remaining one will serve as the base of the cake.
Cut the first cake into 6 rings 2 cm wide. You can use various dishes as a stencil.
Place even and odd rings separately.
Place the cake layer that was set aside as the base of the cake into the assembled pan. Place rings from an even or odd group on it.
Start preparing the soufflé - combine cottage cheese, sugar, sour cream.
Add cream (if it is 33% fat, you can whip it first) and mix everything. Pour gelatin over milk.
Heat the increased gelatin until it is completely dissolved and pour into the curd mixture.
Distribute the cream soufflé between the rings and coat the top with a thin layer.
Place the second group of rings in place. Fill the empty spaces with curd cream.
Place the entire structure in the refrigerator. The frozen soufflé should retain its shape when pressed.
Place strips of paper, 2 cm wide, in a uniform lattice pattern on the cake. Sprinkle cocoa through a strainer. Carefully remove the paper.
Cover the dark squares with clean strips and repeat the procedure with sprinkles. After removing the paper, a chessboard pattern will be revealed.
Dessert for chess players is ready.
But the main surprise lies inside the “Chessboard” cake - each piece has a lined black and white board on the cut, so you can start the tournament at any time.
This unusual cake in cross section really looks like a chessboard: brown cells alternate with white ones. By the way, if you come across the names “Chessboard” and “Chess” somewhere, know that they all mean the same work of confectionery art.
There are many recipes for this cake. And it’s not surprising: people with a sweet tooth loved it so much that numerous variations began to appear based on the basic recipe. So the name “Chess” can hide any cakes that give the same chess pattern when cut. Dark fragments may represent the crust, and light fragments may represent the curd filling, etc.
But we offer you the good old classic: sponge cake with custard butter cream. Laconic, easy to make and incredibly tasty - exactly the way our mothers know the “Chess” cake.
Name: | Cake "Chess" | |
Date added: | 17.02.2017 | |
Cooking time: | 3 hours | |
Recipe servings: | 12 | |
Rating: | (1
, Wed 5.00
out of 5) |
Product | Quantity |
For white crust: | |
Eggs (large) | 2 pcs. |
Premium flour | 100 g |
Sugar | 150 g |
Baking powder | 1 tsp |
Vanillin | on the tip of a knife |
For the brown crust: | |
Premium flour | 80 g |
Sugar | 150 g |
Eggs | 2 pcs. |
Baking powder | 1 tsp |
Cocoa powder | 2 tbsp. |
Vanillin | on the tip of a knife |
For cream: | |
Milk | 700 ml |
Sugar | 1 tbsp. |
Premium flour | 3 tbsp. |
Butter | 150 g |
Eggs | 2 pcs. |
Full-fat sour cream (from 30%) | 1 tbsp. |
Vanillin | 1 sachet |
Chess cake recipe
Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with a mixer for 8–10 minutes. While doing this, add sugar into the egg mixture in small portions. Sift the flour through a sieve. Add baking powder to it. Stir. Add flour and baking powder into the egg-sugar mixture. To do this, use a spatula to mix the mixture from bottom to top and add a mixture of flour and powder to it in small portions. Stir until the mixture becomes homogeneous.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a baking dish (preferably round) with butter. Pour the dough into it, smooth the top, put it in the oven and bake until done. Prepare the brown crust. It is made exactly the same as white. Cocoa should be added to the dry mass - flour and baking powder.
Break the eggs into a bowl. Add half the sugar to them, beat for a couple of minutes, pour in 250 ml of milk, add flour and beat until smooth. Pour the remaining milk into the saucepan, add the second half of the sugar and vanilla. Place on the fire and bring to a boil. Pour in the egg mixture in a thin stream. Stirring continuously, cook over low heat until the cream thickens. Remove from heat and let cool.
An outlandish chess cake is assembled from biscuit rings of two colors. Remove the butter from the refrigerator in advance and let it soften (but not melt). When it becomes soft, beat with a mixer. Add in small portions to the frozen cream and beat too. At the end add sour cream and beat again. Prepare the cakes. Cut each of them in half lengthwise. You will get four cakes: two white and two brown.
Take three round objects of different diameters. For example, a wide plate, a smaller plate and a bowl or cup. They will act as cutting molds. Place the first ramekin on the cake and run a knife along it. In the end, you should cut a ring out of the cake. Do the same with the second and third shape. Do the same with the remaining cakes. Each of them will be divided into three rings and one circle.
Assemble the cakes by mixing the rings. For example: the first ring, the widest, is brown, the second is white, the third is brown, the inner circle is white. Since all the figures were made using the same molds, they are the same size. The result will be four striped cake layers: two with a white outer circle and two with a brown one.
Assemble the cake, brushing with cream and alternating cake layers: if the first one had a white outer ring, then the second one should have a brown one, etc. Grease the top cake and sides with cream. If desired, sprinkle with coconut or chocolate chips, nuts or any other topping. Place the cake in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours to soak. Remove and serve.
“Chess” cake is a very beautiful and tasty dessert that will be a great final dish for a birthday, children’s party, or party with friends. The combination of white and chocolate sponge cake and delicate chocolate cream make this dessert very popular. So, if you want to amaze everyone and hear the admiration of your guests, prepare a “Chess” cake - its recipe is not much more complicated than the recipe for the most ordinary sponge cake. Let's look at several options for how to make a chess cake correctly.
Preparing the cream
All experts advise starting the preparation of this dessert with cream, because it must cool sufficiently.
Ingredients:
- bitter chocolate – 200 g (one bar);
- milk – 1.5 cups;
- sugar – 150-200 g;
- butter – 200-250 g;
- chicken egg – 2 pcs.;
- flour – 40 g (1 heaped tablespoon);
- vanillin – 1 sachet.
Preparation
Finely chop the chocolate with a knife or break into small pieces and melt in a water bath. Separate the yolks from the whites (the whites will go into the dough), thoroughly mash the yolks with sugar, add the sifted flour and rub it into the mixture. Heat the milk until almost boiling. As soon as the first bubbles appear, pour a little milk into the yolks and quickly stir gently. Stir thoroughly so that there are no lumps. Add the remaining milk and melted chocolate and place the bowl over the heat. Heat over low heat, stirring continuously until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the butter, mix thoroughly, cook a little more, when the cream becomes thick enough, remove it from the heat and set aside to cool.
“Chess” cake - recipe with photo
The cakes for this dessert are prepared like a regular sponge cake.
Ingredients:
- chicken egg – 3 pcs.;
- proteins left over from preparing the cream;
- butter – ½ pack;
- sugar – 200-250 g;
- sour cream 20% - 200 g;
- premium flour – 300 g;
- baking powder - 1 teaspoon;
- salt – 1 pinch;
- cocoa powder – 5-6 tbsp. spoons
Preparation
So, let’s prepare the “Chess” cake, the photos will explain how to get an interesting effect of chess cells without special devices. Sift the flour, add salt and baking powder. Stir the mixture and divide in half. Add cocoa to one part. Grind soft butter with sugar until the grains disappear and the mixture turns white.
Separate the whites from the yolks. Add the yolks to the butter and sugar, and beat the whites separately into a strong foam (for this they must be cold). Divide the butter mixture in half, add flour without cocoa and half of the whipped whites to one part, mix the other with flour with cocoa and the remaining whites. Mix gently, with a spatula, in one direction, not until completely homogeneous. After making sure that both masses are sufficiently combined, transfer the dough into greased or parchment-lined pans and bake the cakes at 160 degrees for about half an hour.
Assembling the cake
Carefully cut the cakes lengthwise into 2 parts. From paper or cardboard, cut a circle according to the diameter of the mold in which the cakes were baked. Using a compass, draw 2-3 circles of smaller diameter inside the paper circle with the same pitch (each circle should be smaller than the previous one by the same number of centimeters). Cut the paper circle into rings, attach them to the cakes and using a knife according to this pattern, separate the same rings from the cakes.
On a platter, assemble the first cake layer, alternating colors: if the outer circle is white, the next one is chocolate and vice versa. You will get a white chocolate cake. Carefully coat it with cream, assemble the second cake layer on it in the reverse order: the outer ring is chocolate, a white one is placed in it, etc. The finished cake can be decorated as desired, for example, line the sides with chocolates or chocolate-covered cookies, and sprinkle the top of the cake with small colored candies.
Or you can make a “Chessboard” cake. To do this, prepare white mastic and cut it into squares. Pour melted chocolate or chocolate glaze over the cake and place mastic squares. The option is simpler - brush the cake with whipped cream, smooth it out and, using a stencil with cut out squares, sprinkle the “Chess” cake with cocoa.
Want to make some more treats with easy step-by-step recipes? Then pay attention to the recipe and.