Checkerboard Fantasy Cake

This delightful trompe I’oeil of downy yellow and chocolate checkerboard cake from The Cake Bible is the one I choose for my nephew Alexander’s annual visit. When he was about to be seven years old, be started the happy tradition of spending his birthday week with us at our house in Hope, New Jersey. He takes great pride in his being grown-up enough to take the flight from San Francisco on his own, thanks to the airline’s “young flyers club.”