I’m a big fan of chocolate turtles (Where. Are. The. Turtles???) so this recipe obviously appealed to me. It’s a little time consuming just because there are a few parts, but nothing too difficult.

You’re going to start off by making the chocolate layer cakes. This is a very standard cake recipe so easy to do and no issues with this process. I will note that since I’ve started cutting parchment rounds to put in the bottom of my cake pans it has been so much easier and less stressful worrying whether the cake might stick. They came out perfectly so I let these cool while I moved on to other elements.

The icing wasn’t difficult, you’re just mixing together the cream, chocolate, and corn syrup over medium-low heat until it’s smooth. I’m can’t remember how long this took, but it wasn’t too terribly long. Once done you’ll want to let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour before using.

The caramel filling is pretty easy as well since you’re just heating the caramels, cream, and salt in a saucepan. The recipe mentions using about 57 caramels and that’s about what I ended up using. Taking the plastic off all the caramels honestly seemed to take the longest. When the mixture is smooth you’ll take out 3/4 cup of the caramel to use for the top and then mix in your chopped pecans.

Assembling the cake wasn’t too difficult either, you’ll just put a layer of the caramel pecan filling on the first 2 chocolate layers and then ice the cake with the chocolate icing. I had to heat up the caramel a little to pour it onto the cake and it ended up melting some of the chocolate icing so I just decided to cover that section with pecans. Mine didn’t look as pretty, but it wasn’t too bad.

This cake is super rich so it’s a great one to make if you’re having lot’s of company. I felt like my cake layers were a little dry so it’s possible I baked them just a little too long. Next time I might do a little simple syrup on them so they don’t dry out; though, a bourbon simple syrup might be nice too! All in all it was good but probably not something I’d make often.

Baking Ease	9
Time Spent	8
Taste	9
Visual	9

Recipe Used: America’s Test Kitchen, The Perfect Cake p. 144