No-bake train cake recipe

This no-bake train cake is so easy to assemble from shop-bought cakes and biscuits - its the perfect birthday cake cheat. Taming Twins blogger Sarah Barnes uses ready-made cake and biscuits, which is perfect if you're looking for a quick and simple cake idea for your little one's birthday.

The train is made from chocolate Swiss roll and Mini Rolls with Jammie Dodger wheels and sweetie cargo. Your child's face will light up when they see this delicious train cake in all its glory. This cake will take around 1hr to assemble. Store in an airtight container until you're ready to serve it.

You can fill the train's carriages with your child's favourite sweets and chocolates. Leftovers can be stored in a cake tin for up to 2 days or wrapped in tin foil and kept in the fridge. The kids are going to love it!

From gooey chocolate brownies to sumptuous plum cake, we’ve got cake recipes galore here.

Ingredients

• a large cake board/drum (or a kitchen tray, covered in tin foil)
• 100g desiccated coconut
• few drops green liquid food colouring
• 400g readymade buttercream icing
• 130g pack Matchmaker chocolates
• 114g pack chocolate fingers
• 2 chocolate Swiss rolls
• 4 Jammie Dodger biscuits
• 2 liquorice whirls
• 4 Mini Rolls
• 1 tube Smarties
• 1 small bag Jelly beans
• 1 small bag Iced Gem biscuits

Method

1. Put the coconut in a bowl and add green food colouring, starting with just a few drops. Stir it in, adding more colouring a few drops at a time, until it reaches the desired shade of green to make 'grass'.
2. Spread the cake board with a thin layer of the buttercream icing and sprinkle the coloured coconut evenly over this. Press down lightly with your hands to stick it on.
3. Next, position matchmakers to form the train tracks. Use a little buttercream to stick them down. Top these with chocolate fingers to form the cross pieces of the track. Use a little buttercream to stick them down.
4. Now trim a piece, about 10cm long, from the end of your first Swiss roll. Put the remaining longest piece onto the tracks as the train engine.
5. Stick the 10cm leftover piece of Swiss roll on top of the engine using buttercream to secure it. (You can trim a little bit off of the underside in a curve shape to make it sit better if you like).
6. Use buttercream to attach a liquorice whirl to the top of this piece and another to the front of the engine.
7. Add the 4 Jammie Dodgers to the engine, using buttercream, to form wheels.
8. Take the second Swiss roll and cut it in half, slice the top off of each of these sections of Swiss roll to form the cars.
9. Sit 2 Mini Rolls on top of the tracks behind the engine, and top with one of the half Swiss roll sections. Spread the top with buttercream and top with Smarties.
10. Behind this, sit the remaining two mini rolls, with the last piece of Swiss roll on top. Add buttercream and jelly bean 'freight'.
11. Add some Iced Gems to the 'grass' like flowers.