Checkerboard Neapolitan Cake Recipe from Cookies Cupcakes and Cardio

Hi everybody, this is Jen from Cookies, Cupcakes and Cardio.com. Today I'm going to be showing you how to make this Neapolitan Checkerboard Cake. So it's got three flavors, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. We put them all together to make this really cool inside design. Let's get started. To make the Neapolitan cake, we're going to be using one 8-inch chocolate cake, one 8-inch strawberry cake, one 8-inch vanilla cake, and we're going to be using pink, brown and white buttercreams. And then for decorating the top, I just went to my local candy store, which is called Bulk Barn, it's a Canadian store, and I found a white, a pink and a brown candy, and these three were of similar size, so I thought that they would be perfect to put on top of the cake. So I'm going to show you what to do next with this vanilla cake, and you'll have to repeat the steps for the strawberry cake and for the chocolate cake. So what I've got here is a 3-inch round cutter, and then I've made myself, it's about a 5.5-inch cutter, you can use like a 5 or a 6 if you've got those, I just didn't have one that was big enough so I had to make do. So what I'm going to do first is put this down into the center of the cake here, and then just using a knife, I'm just going to go around and cut this shape out, like this, and then once I've got that done, I'm going to put my cutter into the center, make sure it's lined up, and then just press that down. So once you do that, you want to make sure it goes all the way through, and then you're going to pull each piece apart, and I'm going to do that for all three of the cakes. As you can see, I have all of the pieces cut up here. Now with some vanilla buttercream, and the only reason I'm using vanilla buttercream is because it's the easiest to make more of, I'm just going to go around the inside here, and you just want a thin layer. If your cakes are moist enough, you might even get away without having to put any of this buttercream, and it just kind of acts as an anchor to help the other pieces stay in here. So I've got the pink on the outside, so the next color I need to go for either has to be white or the chocolate. I'm going to put the chocolate in here, and just press it down, like that, and then put some more buttercream on the inside of the chocolate one, like this, and you want to have all three colors on each of your layers. So the next color I'm going to be using is obviously going to be the vanilla cake. Press that down. Now once I've got that first layer done, I'm just going to take a scoop of vanilla buttercream again, and I'm just going to smooth it on top. Now what I'll do next is just put up the next layer, and then just build the cake up till all three layers are together. So I've got all three layers stacked. What I'm going to do next is I'm just going to apply a thin crumb coat, and I don't want to do too much pressing at this point, because the higher you get in the layers, the easier it is for the cake to actually wobble around, and that's the purpose for putting it into the freezer, which is what I'm going to do next. So I'm going to put it in there probably for about half an hour, maybe a little bit longer if I have the chance to, just to make sure that everything is solid and set before I start decorating the outside. So now that I have the crumb coat on and my cake is cool, what I'm going to do is take my chocolate buttercream in a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 104 tip, which is a petal tip. So all I'm going to do is just put the fat part against the cake right at the base here, and I'm going to squeeze, and I'm going to go up about an inch, and then down. So I'm going to do that all the way around the cake. This is similar to just a ribbon effect, I'm just going a different way, instead of up and down vertically, I'm just going around the cake. Now I'm going to do the exact same thing with my pink buttercream, just starting it right on top of the chocolate one here, and going all the way around again. Now on to the vanilla. So when I get finished the vanilla, I'm going to start all over again with the chocolate one, and I'm just going to keep going until I get up to the top. The last step is to take these candies and to put them all over the cake in whatever way you would like to. I just kind of want to spread them out with lots of different colours and different spots. Now I've got a second cake prepared that I'm going to slice into, so we can see the checkered board look. So as soon as I finish the top here, I'm going to slice into that cake and be back to close the video. So there you go everybody, this is the cut version of the Neapolitan checkerboard cake. It definitely will impress people when you slice into that cake and they get to see all these colours. So I hope you enjoyed the recipe today, remember to subscribe to the channel to stay up to date on all of our newest videos, and in our description box below you can find all of the social media sites where you can follow us and like us, and I'll love to see you when you come on over there. See you next time!