Colin the Caterpillar facts for kids
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| Type | Roll cake |
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| Place of origin | United Kingdom |
| Created by | Marks & Spencer |
| Main ingredients | chocolate sponge cake, buttercream and shell; white chocolate |
Colin the Caterpillar is a super popular chocolate cake sold by the British store Marks & Spencer. It's a Swiss roll cake, which means it's rolled up with yummy filling inside. Since 1990, over 15 million Colin cakes have been sold! This makes Colin a true birthday party star in the United Kingdom.
What Makes Colin So Special?
Colin the Caterpillar is a chocolate sponge cake rolled with chocolate buttercream. It's covered in a milk chocolate shell. For decoration, it has sugar-coated milk chocolate beans. Colin also has a fun face and feet made from white chocolate. You can buy Colin in both large and small sizes.
Marks & Spencer says it takes 38 people to make each Colin cake from start to finish. Also, a huge amount of sugar coating, about 8,400 kilograms, is used every year for Colin's colorful spots!
Colin's success might be linked to the famous children's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. This book was very popular around the time Colin first appeared. A bestselling cookbook by Jane Asher also featured a caterpillar birthday cake recipe that same year. Colin the Caterpillar quickly became a favorite for kids' birthday parties. But guess what? Teens and adults love him too!
In 2020, Marks & Spencer celebrated Colin's 30th birthday. They even declared August 26th as National Colin the Caterpillar Day!
Cool Colin Variations
Over the years, many different versions of Colin the Caterpillar have been made for special times or holidays. Here are some of the most exciting ones:
- Connie The Caterpillar Cake: This is Colin's female friend! Connie looks just like Colin but wears a pretty pink bow.
- Personalised Cakes: You can get giant versions of Colin or Connie for big parties. These cakes can serve up to 40 people! You can also have a name or special message written on them.
- Wedding Cakes: Believe it or not, Colin and Connie can even be part of a wedding! In 2017, Marks & Spencer launched "Colin the Groom" and "Connie the Bride" cakes. Colin the Groom wears a bow tie and top hat. Connie the Bride has a lace veil and flowers.
- 25th Anniversary Cake: For Colin's 25th birthday in 2015, a special edition cake was made. It had a party hat, colorful feet, and extra candy spots.
- Count Colin The Caterpillar Cake: For Halloween, Colin gets a spooky makeover! Count Colin has green feet and face, and his body is decorated with chocolate maggots. He looks a bit like Frankenstein's monster or a zombie!
- Christmas Cake: During Christmas, Colin gets into the festive spirit. He wears a Santa hat and is decorated with candy canes, holly leaves, and snowflakes.
- Coffee Morning Colin: In 2018, a special Colin cake helped raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. This Colin had purple feet and green and purple sprinkles.
- Colin The Caterpillar Faces: To celebrate Colin's 30th birthday, Marks & Spencer started selling bags of just Colin's white chocolate faces!
- Mini Colin The Caterpillars: These are smaller versions of Colin, perfect for individual treats.
- Flower Power Connie: For Mother's Day in 2021, Connie got a new look with yellow and pink flowers and a floral headband.
- Easter Eggs: For Easter 2021, you could find Colin-themed Easter Eggs! There was a hollow chocolate egg with Colin faces inside. There was also a special Colin cake wearing a top hat with bunny ears and chocolate eggs on his back.
- Colin the Caterpillar Cake Jars: In 2021, M&S put Colin cake layers into jars! These jars had chocolate sponge, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, and Colin’s white chocolate face on top.
Other Caterpillar Cakes
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Colin the Caterpillar is so popular that other stores also sell their own caterpillar cakes! Some of these include:
- Morris the Caterpillar from Morrisons
- Cuthbert the Caterpillar from Aldi
- The Curious Caterpillar at the Co-Op
- Cecil the Caterpillar at Waitrose
- Clyde the Caterpillar at Asda
- Wiggles the Caterpillar at Sainsbury's
- Clive the Caterpillar at One Stop
- Curly the Caterpillar at Tesco
In 2021, Marks & Spencer took legal action against Aldi. They said that Aldi's Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake looked too much like Colin. Marks & Spencer felt that Cuthbert was "riding on the coat-tails" of Colin's fame.
This court case got a lot of attention! Some fish and chip shops even started selling deep-fried Mini Colin cakes to raise money for charity. One shop in East Kilbride even deep-fried a whole Colin the Caterpillar cake!
