Pina Colada Checkerboard Cake

I am an amateur photographer, emphasis on the AMATEUR! These photos do not do justice to this delicious and beautiful checkerboard cake. I made this cake to enter into a cake decorating competition but wasn't satisfied with my effort so it didn't make the cut. It was still a fun cake to make and the end result of the checkerboard look is pretty impressive. I learnt how to make a checkerboard cake from my favourite food blog Raspberri Cupcakes.  

The cake itself is just a basic buttercake recipe split into 3 flavours. To one I added lime juice, to the other I added crushed pineapple and to the last I added coconut. I colour coded them to match their taste, lime is green, pineapple is yellow and coconut is white. Although in a moment of absent mindedness I actually coloured the coconut batch yellow instead f the pineapple :(. Ahh close enough, no one will ever know... In hindsight, I would have maybe added a bit more depth of flavour to the cakes using more ingredients such as liquers and coconut cream. 

If you are wondering how to get the checkerboard effect (as I was when i first saw it), I've included step by step photos.

So its basically cutting 3 circles out of 3 cakes, alternating the circles and then stacking the cakes on top of each other (that photo is absent, but im sure you get the idea).

For the Cakes

(recipe from taste.com Homemade Buttercake)

What you will need

• 125g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs lightly beaten
• 1 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• Green and yellow food colouring
• 1/4 cup crushed pineapple
• Juice and zest of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup coconut

What you will need to do

• Preheat oven to 180*C and grease 3 round cake tins of the same size.
• Beat butter, vanilla and sugar until light and creamy (HEAVEN!)
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• Stir in flour and milk until combined.
• Split mixture into 3 bowls. 
• Add lime juice and zest to one bowl and colour it green, pineapple to another and colour it yellow and add coconut to the last bowl. Stir each bowl until well combined.
• Pour into cake tins and cook for 20 minutes or until cooked through.
• When cakes are done, allow to cool slightly then remove from tins and cool completely.
• Wrap cakes in plastic and put into freezer preferably overnight or just until frozen.
• Prepare the cream cheese icing just before you take the cakes out of the freezer. I used the recipe for the cream cheese icing from this Macaron recipe but just left it vanilla flavoured.
• Take frozen cakes and unwrap. 
• Cut out circles as shown in photos above. My cakes were 18 cm in diameter so I cut out a circle 6 cm in diameter then 12 cm in diameter on each cake. Alternate the circles so each cake has one of each colour.
• Place a blob of icing on your serving plate and place one of the cakes on top. Spread the first cake with a thin layer of icing and place the second cake on top of that. Spread again thinly with icing and place the final cake on top. Spread the whole cake with a thin layer of icing then put in the fridge to set for at least an hour.
• Take the cake out of the fridge and cover with the rest of the icing. I decorated my cake with the Lemon and Lime Macarons.