Melt chocolate over hot water and set aside to cool slightly. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy and pale yellow. Add vanilla and then the eggs one at a time and incorporate. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt and alternate by adding the flour mixture and the milk in three parts. Divide the batter in half and fold in the melted chocolate and the cocoa to the one half. In the other half fold in the mousse and the coolie.

Baking the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake this cake in a 9 and ¾ inch checkerboard cake pan set. Grease the three cake pans and line with parchment. I normally use the Wilton cake release.

Grease and then place the tri- sectioned batter divider into one pan and then pour the chocolate batter in the inner and outer rings. Pour the strawberry batter into the middle ring. Make sure to pour batter so that the pans are half full Remove the divider gingerly by the edges, lifting straight up and then wash and dry the divider. Prepare the second pan exactly as the first one. For the third pan, wash the divider again, grease and position and then alternate the colors by pouring the strawberry batter into the inner and outer sections and the chocolate batter in the middle and then remove the divider. Bake the layers for 25 mins. or until a skewer comes out clean- place skewers in the middle of cake to check for doneness. Cool cakes in pans on racks for 10 mins. Cakes will retract slightly and then invert onto parchment paper.

Assembling:

NB. You can use any frosting and decorations you like, just make sure you use a thin layer of frosting between layers so as not to upset the checkerboard effect! I made sure to decorate the cake with lots of strawberries and melted dark chocolate.

I used the brand Oetker mousse ( strawberry and chocolate) to ice my cake and just made each box by following the directions on the box but just using ½ c of milk instead of 1 c as stated on their box. I also whipped up some heavy whipping cream and folded a little into the Oetker mousse dessert mix to lighten it. A little melted white chocolate went into the strawberry mousse and a little melted dark chocolate went into the chocolate mousse as well and in so doing amplified that rich chocolate taste. I put the chocolate in between the layers and the strawberry on the outside as you can see in my picture.

When cool, stack the cakes so that the outside colors alternate and to ultimately achieve the checkerboard effect.

• Being above 5,000 ft above sea level, I constantly test recipes because of the altitude. One has to improvise and manipulate the ingredients until the end result turns out to be spectacular. So make a recipe your own, even if you have to do it many times over to achieve the result that gives you pleasure. Nothing is worth having without a little perseverance and a culinary vision

Enjoy! because we certainly did!

giddygastronome

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