Tortoise Cake Recipes

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x13 inch pan.
• Mix cake mix according to package directions. Pour a little less than half of the batter into prepared pan and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) remove from oven.
• Melt caramels, margarine, and milk in the microwave on high (takes about 10 minutes), stirring a couple times. Or alternately melt in a sauce pan over medium low heat. Pour melted caramel mixture over cake, sprinkle with pecans, and chocolate chips, and pour remaining cake batter over the top.
• Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 20 to 35 minutes.

Steps:

• In a bowl, mix together 175 grams of margarine and 175 grams of sugar. Next, break three eggs into the bowl and beat it all up really well. Finally add 125 grams of self raising flour and 50 grams of cocoa powder. It's a good idea to sieve these to get rid of any lumps. Use a metal spoon to stir it all together, then transfer it to a greased bowl. The bowl needs to be oven-proof and about 16cm in diameter. Put the cake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for about an hour.
• When it's cooked loosen the cake with a knife and carefully turn it out onto a wire rack, then leave it to cool. While it's cooling you can prepare the chocolate butter icing. In a clean bowl add 100 grams of margarine, 175 grams of sieved icing sugar, 1x heaped tablespoon of cocoa powder and one tablespoon of milk. Mix it together until it's really smooth.
• Using a knife cut the cake in half, and sandwich the two flat sides together with the butter icing. Cover the whole thing in the rest of the icing - don't forget to save a bit of the icing for the head and legs though.
• Once it's all covered, smooth it down with a flat knife. You could use chocolate buttons all over the icing, but you can always use a knife to mark the tortoise's shell lines with a criss-cross pattern.
• For the legs cover four marshmallows in chocolate butter icing and stick them to the sides of his shell.
• For the head stick two marshmallows together and again cover them in chocolate icing.
• Finally, stick two currants onto the top of the head for the eyes.
• You can make smaller tortoises using sponge fairy cakes for the body, broken up chocolate buttons for the feet and half a marshmallow for the head.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease and flour a 13 x 9 inch pan.
• Pour half of the prepared cake mix into the pan.
• Bake for 25 minutes.
• In the meantime, place unwrapped caramels in a saucepan.
• Add 1/2 cup evaporated milk.
• Heat on low, stirring until caramels have melted.
• Remove cake from oven and pour melted caramel mixture on top of the cake.
• Sprinkle chopped pecans and chocolate chips on top of caramel layer.
• Press down lightly.
• Pour remaining half of prepared cake mix on top of the filling layer.
• Bake an additional 30 minutes.
• After removing cake from the oven, let the cake cool slightly (approx. 5- 10 minutes).
• Run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake.
• This is an important step- otherwise you'll have a tough time removing the pieces later!
• Store at room temperature.
• Note: Please see your cake mix box for exact amounts of vegetable oil, water and eggs.