Chocolate Turtle Bundt Cake

This month is all about chocolate. Rich, luscious chocolate. I love the stuff. I would swim in it if it was socially acceptable. I would eat if for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could. Any excuse to bake with chocolate is a great day in my world. Today is a fabulous day. I was able to bake with chocolate and turn it into a turtle treat.

For those who know me well, you know how much I adore all things turtle. If I can find a way to make any dish a turtle dish I'm going to try. Honestly turtles make my heart go pitter patter. The only thing that compares in my world to turtles is pizza. One of my dear friends, Izzy of Crumb knows my extreme love of chocolate, turtles and pizza so when she guest posted for me in the summer she combined all those things into a Turtle Pizza. Can you say "heaven on a plate".

When the theme for February's Bundt was announced I think I pounced like a cougar (not THAT kind) and wrote "Turtle Bundt" on the list about .345 seconds after it was posted. I'm sure some folks are rolling their eyes and saying "oh that Lunie, she's so predictable". But I really don't give a good gosh dang to be bluntly honest. I'm sitting here typing with a mouth full of turtle bundt cake while you're eating a boring salad so I think I can deal. I think I got the "not so short end of the stick" on that deal. Honestly if I could marry this cake I would. I think hubs might take an exception to that though. It's okay hubs, I love ya, but man it's turtle freaking bundt cake for crying out loud. Cut me some slack here.

If you are craving chocolate this is your cake. If you dig turtles this is your cake. If you love pecans this is your cake. If you are a caramel junkie this is your cake. I dig all those things so this is my cake. You go make your own man! Mitts off mine!

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5 from 1 vote

Chocolate Turtle Bundt Cake #Bundtamonth

A delicious Turtle Bundt Cake loaded with pecans, chocolate and caramel.

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 55 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings 1 large Bundt Cake

Ingredients

For the Cake:

• 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder you can dial that back, I wanted lots
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon vanilla salt plain is fine
• ½ cup whole milk
• ½ cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• ¾ cup vanilla sugar plain is fine
• 4 large eggs
• ½ teaspoon rum extract
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped pecans

For the Glaze:

• 4 oz semi sweet chocolate
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon butter

For the Caramel:

• 1 ½ cups sugar
• ¼ cup warm water
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Pinch of salt

For the topping:

• ½ to 1 cup of chopped pecans

Instructions

For the Cake:

• Preheat your oven to 325 F.
• Spray a bundt pan generously with non stick spray.
• Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl. Whisk. Set aside.
• Combine milk and yogurt in a separate medium sized bowl. Whisk. Set aside.
• In a stand mixer cream the sugars and butter together till very light and fluffy.
• Begin to beat in eggs, one at a time until well incorporated.
• Turn mixer down to low and add the flour mixture you set aside earlier, and alternate with the milk mixture you also set aside. Do it in about three additions and end with the flour mixture.
• Now add the pecans and mix by hand.
• Pour the mixture into the bundt pan and smooth out.
• Place in your preheated oven for about 55 to 60 minutes.
• Allow to cool in pan.
• Invert onto a plate.

For the Glaze:

• Place the chocolate in a medium sized bowl.
• Heat up your milk in a small saucepan on the stove until it's warm.
• Pour the warm milk over the chocolate. Allow to sit for about 2 to 3 minutes.
• Whisk really well.
• Add the butter and whisk again.
• Allow to cool and thicken a bit before pouring over the cake.

For the Caramel:

• In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and water. Give it a good stir. Let it cook over medium low heat until sugar dissolves.
• Now stop stirring and let it continue to cook. It will start to turn amber in colour after some time so watch it closely but do not stir. You can pop the lid on to keep crystals from forming on the pot at this point.
• Once it turns amber, remove from heat. Pour in the cream. It will bubble up, this is suppose to happen so do not panic.
• Give it a stir. Now add the butter. It will bubble up a bit again, don't panic. Whisk until smooth.
• Add vanilla and salt. Whisk until smooth.
• Allow to cool before pouring on cake.

Putting it all together:

• Once the cake is cooled and the chocolate is cooled you can pour the chocolate glaze over top of the cake. Pop the cake in the fridge for a bit to let the chocolate firm up.
• Once the chocolate if firm and the caramel is cool, pour or drizzle that over top of the cake. Toss your pecans over top.
• Serve with a big old Turtle smile!

Notes

Cake and glaze recipe slightly adapted from Martha Stewart

Caramel recipe adapted from Fine Cooking

If you would like to learn how to make your own Vanilla Salt or Vanilla Sugar it's super easy to do. Just click the links and I'll show you just how easy it is. If you have no inclination to make it and you're thinking to yourself, cripes Lunie I have better things to do with my time than make weird stuff, that's fine. Just use regular sugar and salt. It's okay with me if you're super de duper boring.

My only disappointment with the cake is purely based on photos. You cannot see the caramel drizzled all over it in the photos. I may see if I can get a shot in natural light and maybe it will show up better. There's tons of caramel on it but you can't seem to see it. I'll try to fix that with some tinkering.

For more fabulous Chocolate Bundt Cakes please visit the folks below:

Here's how you can be a part of Bundt-a-Month:

- Simple rule: Use chocolate - and bake us a Bundt for February

- Post it before February 28, 2013.

- Use the #BundtAMonth hashtag in your title. (For ex: title should read #BundtAMonth: Chocolate Cinnamon Bundt)

- Add your entry to the Linky tool below

- Link back to our announcement posts.

Follow Bundt-a-Month on Facebook where we feature all our gorgeous bundt cakes. Or head over to our Pinterest board for inspiration and choose from over 350 Bundt cake recipes.

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Thank you to Anurahda of Baker Street and Lora of Cake Duchess for hosting our Bundt Party every month. You ladies rock. Lora we miss you and hope you are doing okay. Much love lady!

Thanks for visiting.

Giveaway news tomorrow!

While I have your chocolatey attention I would like to let you know Kristen of Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker is hosting a Solid Month of Chocolate. If you do not know Kristen it's time to change that. I love the woman and she bakes some delicious stuff. Today's chocolate treat is Paleo Chocolate Cheesecake. You must go check it out. She's got lots of folks guesting for her this month too, including "moi" on Valentine's Day. A month of chocolate, I'm totally down with that idea. Kristen is an evil genius!

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Toodles and smoochies! xx