Recipe(tried): How to Make a Turtle Shaped Cake (with photo and additional note) for Virginia, Mississippi

Hi Virginia!

I wish I had a picture to send you*, but I can tell you how to easily make a turtle shaped cake.

For best results, you will need to use a Wilton round ball pan. If you have a rounded large glass measuring cup or even a stainless steel one, you could use those too. If you don't want a rounded back on your turtle, just use round cake pans and stack two or three layers. If you need to buy a pan: First of all, if you have a cake or candy supply store near you, you can check there to see if they rent pans. If not, check wal-Mart or any craft store like Hobby Lobby or Michaels. They will be with the Wilton cake section. (Located in crafts at wal-mart.)

Now, just grease and flour pan, then pour in your cake mix to about 2/3 full.

Bake as directed. Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes.

With a sharp serrated knife, cut off cake to level the pan's top edge. Reserve the cut off pieces of the cake. Turn leveled cake out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

There are several methods you can use for feet:
- You can bake cakes in small souffle or custard cups if you have them.
- You can use a square 8x8 pan and cut that into 4 squares.
- You can also use a Wilton mini-ball pan to make 4 feet.
- You could also use King Dons or cupcakes for the feet.
- One last idea for the feet and the head, is to use Twinkies. Just make two feet out of each Twinkie, and simply cut the rounded end off of one and attach longer Twinkie to cake for head.

Now, for assembly:
Take your Large Round "body" and ice it with green tinted buttercream icing.

Place your 4 "feet" next to the body and frost them using tan buttercream.

For a tail, use some of the reserved cake pieces that you cut off when leveling the body. Lay it next to the back and frost it with tan buttercream.

Use more of the cut off cake to shape a head. Frost this with light tan buttercream.

Use yellow and or dark brown tinted buttercream to make either spots or a box turtle design on the turtles back with a pastry bag fitted with a round decorating tip (Use a 7-8 size round tip for easier application.)

You can use a star shaped tip to make the turtle's feet more designed if you wish, but just frosting them will be fine.

Use tinted frosting in black for the eyes and mouth of the turtle.

You can use any picture of any turtle and you can get creative with your colors too. If they are having a boy make it a blue turtle with yellow feet, etc.

Hope this will help and have fun! If you have any other questions, please repost here. Let us know how it turns out!!

ADDITIONAL NOTE:
That is a great picture that Betsy found for you! I just wanted to clarify that to raise the turtle's head as in the picture shown, you will need a small round cake, or cup cake. You could use the mini-ball pan by wilton, just cut a level spot off the rounded part for the head to rest on. Also the feet on the pictured cake are just piped icing. I didn't think of this before, but it would also work fine!

*Editor's note:
Here's a cute one - it looks like it uses the pans and decorating ideas Barbara described:


Photo Source: Old Thyme Pastries, Turlock California