Dairy Free Caterpillar Cake

Not that I need an excuse to bake, but my sister in law's birthday at the beginning of June was a perfect reason to book a days leave from work and have a relaxing day in the kitchen. The brief was a caterpillar cake, which if your family is anything like mine, is an absolute birthday favourite. However this little caterpillar was to be extra special and completely dairy free.

Before making this I had a look for a vegan swiss roll recipe, to no evail. Before failing at the first hurdle, I took to twitter during the weekly #bakershour hosted by She Who Bakes and asked for help. Fortunately, fellow baker Collin's Time to Bake obliged and went away to devise a dairy free recipe that was flexible enough for rolling but strong enough not to fall apart.

I was really grateful that my fellow bakers came to the rescue and spent time going through trial and error for the perfect recipe - this kind of experimenting is something I would like to spend more time doing in the future. But for now, I will share this with you and hopefully sometime soon will be sharing experimental recipes of my own.

The recipe that was created by Collin was adopted slightly for the purpose of creating a chocolate caterpillar cake.

To make a dairy free caterpillar cake you will need:

For the sponge:

• 200g Caster sugar
• 50g of vegan butter (I used vitalite)
• 1 and a 1/2 ripe bananas
• 170g Self raising flour
• 30g Cocoa powder
• 75ml dairy free mill (I used soya)
• Icing sugar - to dust

For the buttercream please click here to find details of the vegan buttercream I have used before when making a dairy free dinosaur celebration cake. I used half the quantity in this recipe and added cocoa to turn in chocolatey.

For decoration:

• Mini Oreo biscuits (these are already vegan!)
• Ready to roll fondant icing. You could buy white, yellow, black and green or do as I did and just buy white and colour it with food gels.
• 100g dark / dairy free chocolate (finely grated)

Right - lets get baking!

• Start by lining a swiss roll  tin and heating your oven to 180c fan.
• Mix the caster sugar, dairy free butter and bananas together until smooth and creamy.
• Add the flour, cocoa and milk mixing until completely combined.
• Transfer your cake batter into your lined caked tin and back for between 15-17 minutes.

• Whilst your swiss roll is baking put a large piece of greaseproof paper on your work surface and cover generously with icing sugar.
• When your cake is baked you have to move fairly quickly, turning it out of its tin immediately onto the greaseproof paper and rolling it up into a tight sausage shape along the long edge. The greaseproof paper is to remain inside as this will help you to unroll it later when its cool and ready to be filled.

• Allow your rolled up cake to cool completely - whilst its cooling you can prepare the buttercream and colour your fondant icing. You will need green, yellow, pink, white and black.

• Out of the green icing out out lots of leaf shapes which will be used to decorate the cake board. The yellow is for Collin the Caterpillars face, the white and black for his eyes and the pink for his nose. Be as creative as you like - I went for a fairly traditional looking caterpillar for my first attempt.
• When the cake is completely cooled carefully unroll it, and fill with buttercream - try not to put too much filling in as this will making rolling it back up difficult and messy! Using the greaseproof paper to help you, roll the cake into a tight swiss roll and trim the edges off the neaten it up.

• This is when the decorating begins - cover the cake completely with buttercream and then sprinkle with the grated chocolate. Position on a cake board and get creative with leaves to make your caterpillar look as though he is at home in a leafy garden. I used mini oreos for his feet and last but not least, put the fondant icing face in position.

And that's all there is too it - yet again, I couldn't try this recipe as I am still not eating chocolate however as I type this I only have 2 days to go so this time tomorrow I will be adapting my chocolate brownie recipe to make some salted caramel versions as a celebration of surviving a whole 365 days without chocolate!

For more baking chat and photos you can follow me on twitter, instagram or like my Facebook page - just click on the little icons below. Get in touch and let me know if you try any of my recipes, if you have any questions or if you would like to suggest things for me to bake. 

               

Coming up soon: death by chocolate cake and a summer inspired eton mess tray bake.

For now though, happy baking!

Rach x