I have a birthday child request for a checkerboard cake. Need ideas for the dark side that is not chocolate or colored with a ton of food coloring. The icing is going to have enough as is. He likes fruit flavors and was thinking of using blueberries but we don't really want it to be purple. Another idea was using apple or a spice cake or both but I don't think it would show off the effect enough. His theme is "Minute to Win It" so red or blue checks work.

AWhat about raspberry, strawberry, or cherry? Maybe you can use frozen fruit (dark, sweet cherries might be nice), blend it, cook it down, then strain it before putting in your batter. You could add some natural food coloring (there are several brands) to darken it if needed. Sorry I don't have a recipe. You'll probably have to experiment a bit. Hopefully someone else will have better ideas for you. Good luck!

ABeet juice will give you a pretty good red colour for a berry flavoured cake. If you would like green (to go with mint or apple flavour) spirulina will work well. Turmeric will provide a nice yellow to pair with lemon, but yellow probably isn't a strong enough colour for your needs. There is the option of going with commercial natural food colours, too. Something like these: http://www.goldaskitchen.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=11904&step=4

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The easiest way to use beet juice is probably to buy a can of beets and use the juice from that. Or you can cook beets and press the juice out of them. You might need to reduce the amount of liquid in your icing recipe to compensate for the beet juice, or add more powdered sugar. Edit: Just realized you are wanting to colour the cake here, not the icing. You will want to replace some of the liquid in your recipe with the beet juice. Another option is to purée cooked beets and add that to the batter. The colour will be stronger. You will want to do a test with this method though I think. :)