Turtle Cakes

When my son asked for a turtle cake for his ninth birthday I cringed. (I am so not a cake decorator. I have always thought it would be fun to take some classes, but obviously that has never happened.) Why did he want that again? I made him this birthday cake for his 3rd birthday:

It was a disaster. It was the first time I had baked a cake in a bowl and I overbaked it. It was all dried out and then the frosting was out of control. It was a browned butter frosting which tasted great, but was way too thick in order to cover this turtle and make the design in it. Thankfully we served it with lots of ice-cream. What was amazing was that my 3 year old loved it! Score one for mom...little kids are easy to please. So easy to please and yet I cringed at his request as he now knows what is good and what is not. I was not expecting him to ask for a turtle again. Well I wanted to do something much easier than that first one. I knew I needed it to seem more creative so he would go for it. I was so glad I went with my daughter to a birthday party a few months ago where they served a pull apart cake or some just call them a cupcake cake. So I got on the internet and began searching for a turtle pull apart cake. I found this video and as a result came up with this for my son's birthday:

He was so pleased with how it turned out and quite frankly I was pleased as well. It was so easy and quick and tasted great. Success! (I took the picture before I added a chocolate triangle for the tail).