I made this turtle cake for Caleb's 1st grade teacher. A few weeks after school started Caleb came home and told me that his teacher had been in a bad car accident when someone ran a red light and hit her. She had a broken back among other injuries. After almost a month she came to school to see her class and talk to them about some things since she'd be coming back soon. She showed them the brace, called a turtle shell, that she had to wear around her torso to let her back heal. (She also had a little stuffed animal turtle named Shelley to keep in class, and each child got to take it home for a weekend.)
I decided I'd make a welcome back/get well soon cake to give her on her first day back, and I thought it would be cute to make it in the shape of a little turtle.
I decided I'd make a welcome back/get well soon cake to give her on her first day back, and I thought it would be cute to make it in the shape of a little turtle.
I used one half of a ball pan to bake this cake in. I trimmed a little off the cake on the side where the head was going to be. This would make a little flat spot so I could make it look like the hole where the turtle's head would come out. I crumb coated the cake, let it set, and iced it with green buttercream.
Since I knew the head was going to be pretty big I used foil to make the bulk of it. After I got the shape that I wanted with the foil I covered it with green fondant. I used the excess fondant to continue from the head and make the neck. I set that aside to let it dry a bit.
I iced the flat spot where the head would be with dark green buttercream. I used the same dark green to pipe the details onto the shell. For the design on the top and the lines on the belly I used a round tip, and for the wide edge along the bottom of the shell I used a wide flat ribbon tip.
I attached the turtle head to the cake with a couple of toothpicks. It was pretty top heavy and wanted to pull away, so I propped it up with a box of toothpicks for the time being. I cut the signs from rolled out fondant, attached them to some cut bamboo skewers, painted the words on with blue food coloring, and set them aside to dry. I cut the eyes for the turtle out of fondant and painted on the black pupils, nostrils, and mouth with food coloring. I made the feet and tail out of fondant and slid them in place under the cake. Then I put the signs in the foot and tail to make it look like the turtle was holding them.
The head still didn't want to stay right when I tried to take away the box, but I certainly couldn't give her the cake with a box of toothpicks on it. :) So I decided to make an apple out of fondant and put that in place of the toothpick box to prop up the head. :) It ended up being a good thing that the head was not cooperating because I really liked the way the apple looked as part of the cake. I thought the color contrasted nicely with all the green. Plus, you know, an apple for the teacher. :)
Caleb's teacher was very excited about the cake! I thought it turned out really cute, and we were happy to do something special for her and very happy that she liked it so much. :)
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