Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Chess Cake - and our Boy turns 9



So for Corban's birthday this year, he just couldn't decide what he wanted the theme to be.  He's already done Legos.  Swimming.  A skateboard.  Although he loves soccer and basketball, he wasn't interested in either of those being the theme.  Hmmmm.

Finally, after pondering it for days, I presented the idea of a Board Game Party to him.  He loves playing games and never gets the chance to play them with a group of friends - and he was instantly sold on it.

Although he is not super knowledgeable about chess, he does enjoy it and I thought doing a chess cake would be fun.

I got inspiration from Cake Central - and ordered molds for the playing pieces and the board off of Amazon.

From there, it was really very simple.  I used chocolate candy coating - white and dark - to make the pieces. To make them 3D, I had to "glue" two halves together with more chocolate.  I had a few mishaps and had to melt and re-do a few of them, but it wasn't too bad.

The checkerboard was trickier - because keeping the white and dark chocolate from getting into each other's spaces was a lot harder than I anticipated.  The end result was FAR from perfect, but I don't think 9-12 year old boys really care.  ;)

So I made the pieces the week before and stored them in the fridge and freezer.

I baked a 14" square cake (use ~13.5 cups of batter - I made homemade chocolate cake).

Then I just made Chocolate buttercream - a double batch, to which I added some sifted cocoa powder to make it darker brown.

I frosted the cake - put the mold pieces on - and then piped on some accents.  I used the Wilton #17 star tip for the shells and the swirls - and a  #4 round tip for the border around the checkerboard.

Oh, and the cake board is just foam board from the Dollar Tree - cut to a 16" square and covered with foil.  Cheap and easy!

The only downside to the party was that Corban wasn't feeling too well.  He had just come down with a head/chest cold and was just feeling tired and cruddy.  In fact, he didn't even taste his cake until 2 days later.  He just didn't have the appetite.  So sad.  But he loved his party and spending time with his friends.


They started off the evening playing a little basketball.


A good game of Apples to Apples Jr. - listening to them was so funny!


We had a Connect 4 Tournament.....


Corban had a little helper.  What a good big brother.


Isaiah was the winner!!


Corban with Seth and Caleb (brothers).  He had that Lego set built the next morning - despite feeling sick.


Israel and Corban - those Nerf guns are pretty fun!


Will and Corban - and some really cool camping gear. 


Joseph and Isaiah (brothers) with Corban - and a new Superbook video.  Awesome!


Happy 9th Birthday to our Corban! 

10 comments:

  1. What a cute cake!! Nicely done... I think I need to come take lessons from you.

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  2. What cute pictures!! I love Apples to Apples by the way! Sorry Corbin wasn't feeling good and didn't even try that gorgeous cake!! Oh my gosh. You did a spectacular job! Geez, that's one impressive cake! I'd probably hate to eat the chocolate peaces. they look so perfect!

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  3. That cake is fabulous! I might need to make something like it sometime--it would fit my 10yo nicely--so thank you for posting details. :)

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  4. Your cake is adorable! (and so is your son:-)

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  5. AMAZING cake !!
    I think you've done an excellent job
    I really wish I could make such a cake :)

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  6. Oh my goodness, that is a gorgeous cake! What an awesome job. And the party looked fun. Happy Birthday to him!

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  7. Hi Rebekah! I'm finally going to try my hand at this cake. I just ordered the molds from Amazon--thank you for making it so easy!

    I cannot tell from looking at your photos, so can you please tell me the dimensions of the actual cake? How big is that square? :) Thank you!

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    Replies
    1. Hey Brandy! I hope your family loves this cake....my son still talks about how awesome it was. :) The cake was baked in a 14" square pan, which I borrowed from a friend. The molds would probably fit on a 12" square cake, but I wanted to have a rim around the edges to decorate, so I went with the 14".
      I ended up needing about 13.5 cups of cake batter.
      Let me know if you have any more questions!

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    2. Thank you! That is exactly what I needed to know! I have seen other chess cakes online, but your is the only one with that pretty rim, and I think it looks so much nicer that way.

      I can't wait to try it. :) The party is the 30th, so I still have a little time to imagine it before trying it.

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    3. You're welcome! And it's so nice to be able to make the molds ahead of time...it makes the cake decorating day go so smooth and easy. I hope you'll post pictures afterwards!

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