Ludicrously Long Lennie

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Hello! I’m once again making my own birthday cake and this year I decided it was time for something fun! With social media and the pressure for every single moment to be picture perfect I worry that we’re losing the art of making silly party cakes. Obviously I love a fancy and sophisticated cake but I also have a lot of time for fun, silly cakes, specifically cakes in the shape of animals. When I think of kid’s cakes, I usually think of something covered in fondant that looks a bit naff and tastes of pure sugar but I think there’s a middle ground between this kind of cake and a beautifully considered, Instagram-worthy creation and I’m on a mission to make it!

Today I’m using the King of party as my inspiration - the one and only Colin. If you grew up in the UK I’m willing to bet that you’ve eaten your fair share of Colin The Caterpillars. If you’re not from the UK, let me tell you all about Colin, Colin the Caterpillar is a chocolate Swiss roll birthday cake consisting of a light cocoa sponge, chocolate buttercream and incased in a thick layer of set milk chocolate which delivers a lovely crack as you bite into it. M&S is the home of Colins but pretty much every UK supermarket has their own version; Waitrose has Cecil, Asda had Clyde, Co-op had Charlie, Aldi has Cuthbert… you get the idea.

Something that links all of these caterpillars is that they all have a slightly demented expression, none of them are remotely cute, I think we’re all so blinded by nostalgia that we seem to have just accepted this, but I mean look at him, he’s horrifying! I, of course, wanted to make something a bit cuter, I started off with caterpillars but quickly realised that they weren’t doing it for me. I’m a hardcore dog lover so I decided to make a big old sausage dog instead and Ludicrously Long Lennie was born. Lennie captures the essence of Colin; he has the soft chocolate sponge, chocolate buttercream and a hard outer shell but he’s a little bit sillier and cuter (although still somewhat demented looking)!

As the name would suggest, this cake is pretty long, if you want to make a Regular Length Lennie (as pictured below) it’s significantly easier, you’ll need half quantities of sponge and buttercream and 300g of chocolate.

I’ve kept the flavours for Lennie really simple, I wanted maximum nostalgia, but feel free to swap out the buttercream for any flavour you like! I’d recommend sticking to buttercream rather than a softer cream filling as this cake requires a fair amount of handling and softer filling might not hold up as well.

This bake is a bit of a project so let’s get into it…