Baking,  Cake Decorating,  Tutorials

Mary Berry’s Chess Cake

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This is a recipe from the Great British Bake Off ‘Showstoppers’ book. It’s a Mary Berry recipe, I love Mary Berry. I love her even more after watching Alan Carr interview Mel and Sue last night who told him that she went to Pacha in Ibiza at 71 and likes to drink tequila slammers! The woman is a legend!

Anyway, I was making a cake to take to work for my birthday (an odd tradition, feeding everyone else on your birthday but we’ll go with it) and I chose this one because I loved the surprise element of cutting into what looks like a chocolate cake to find a checkerboard inside. Even better, it’s deceptively easy to create and doesn’t involve any cake carving as many people asked me.

You need:
3 sandwich tins
2 piping bags
2 round nozzles (mine were 8mm)

1. Make a plain batter as per the recipe and divide evenly into two bowls. Add cocoa powder to one bowl making it chocolates.

2. Spoon each mix into a piping bag and then pipe alternate rings around the tin towards the centre. Two tins should start with one colour of mix and the remaining tin should be alternate.

3. The layers are sandwiched together with white chocolate ganache and then the entre cake covered with dark chocolate ganache.

If I’d have thought about it a bit more in advance I’d have made sugarpaste chess pieces for the top of the cake but as it was the glossy ganache looked yummy.

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