Chess is cool now. Hadn’t you heard?

Oh who am I kidding, of course you heard. In fact, 65 million households watched Beth Harmon defeat competitor after competitor in Netflix’s Queen’s Gambit, and it turns out, a lot of us felt inspired to give it a go for ourselves.

But we can’t all be chess-minded, and I’ve always considered myself to be much more of a cake-minded person. So here’s another way to channel your inner chess star, without needing to learn what ‘fool’s mate’ means.

Chocolate and vanilla checkerboard cake (Serves 12)

Ingredients:

For the chocolate cake

• 225g unsalted butter, softened plus extra for greasing
• 225g caster sugar
• 225g self raising flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp semi skimmed milk

For the vanilla cake

• 225g unsalted butter, softened plus extra for greasing
• 225g caster sugar
• 225g self raising flour
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp semi skimmed milk

For the ganache

• 400g dark chocolate, chopped
• 400g double cream
• 3 tbsp caster sugar

For Serving

• 100g dark chocolate, shaved

1. Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line two deep 18cm cake tins with non-stick baking paper.

2. Put all of the chocolate cake ingredients, apart from the milk, in a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric whisk. Once combined, add the milk and whisk in. Then repeat this for the vanilla cake, making sure you wash the whisk to avoid mixing the colours.

3. Spoon the mixtures into separate cake tins and put them on the same shelf in the oven to bake for 1hr 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Tip: The chocolate cake may take 15 more minutes to cook than the vanilla. 

4. Meanwhile, make the ganache by heating the cream and sugar in a small saucepan until the sugar has dissolved and the cream is just steaming. Put the chocolate in a medium mixing bowl then pour your cream over the chocolate. Allow this to sit for 1 minute before you stir together. Then pop this in the fridge for half an hour to chill. Once it has chilled, use a handheld whisk to whip it up to the consistency of buttercream.

5. When the cakes have cooled, try and make them as even in height as possible by cutting the domed tops off. Then cut them in half so you have four equally sized layers. Use cookie cutters, or cut around plates to make three rings from each cake. The centre ring should have a diameter of 6cm, the second 12cm and finally, the last ring is the outside of the cake.

6. Put a large vanilla ring onto a cake board and scrape a little ganache around the inner circle, then place a medium chocolate ring inside and ice the inside too. Add the small vanilla circle in the centre, then ice over the whole layer with some ganache using a spatula.

7. Repeat for layer 2, on top of the first layer, reversing the colours. Then repeat twice more with the remaining cake layers. Swirl the remaining ganache over the top and allow to set in the fridge for 20 minutes before scattering over the shaved chocolate and cutting.

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