This is our “go-to” birthday cake, Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake. It’s been made for and served to multiple generations of my family. Four, to be exact, and hopefully to a new one sometime in the future. This is the cake of our dreams! Intensely chocolate (and moist) cake with a ton of chocolate ganache and dripping with caramel. It’s outstanding and a little messy and oh so wonderful.
Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake
The last time I made this cake was to celebrate my beautiful granddaughter, Addison, on her birthday. Sadly, I usually make my birthday cake, being the unofficial “baker” of the fam. And my birthday is smack dab in the middle of Christmas preparations. You know any cake made then has got to a) stand out and b) be relatively simple. This qualifies! And how easy it is has no relation to how good it is!
Addison
About Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake:
If you’re from the Twin Cities, you know about Cafe Latte, down on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. I think Mabel’s Turtle Cake is their most famous dessert. (Their Tres Leches is a close second!) The Turtle cake is an amazing, deep, dark, three-layer chocolate cake. Each layer is topped with ganache, finished with caramel and they peep and drip out of each layer like a big old-fashioned yogi bear kind of cake. And just like Turtle Candy, there are pecans, but more about that later.
If you and your family and/or your guests love chocolate and caramel, you guys are gonna love love love this! Be warned: it’s sweet overload. The first time I made it was for my son’s seventh birthday and he exclaimed, “It’s soooo good but it hurts to eat!” He’d gotten that little zing you can get in the back of the jaw when eating something sweet! Plain old vanilla ice cream is the perfect foil for this cake – it helps cut the sweetness & the richness.
A note of caution: be prepared! It is the cake friends and family ask for almost every time, and yeah, it’s that good! If you make this cake, you’ll be making it over and over for birthdays and celebrations, every year, year in and year out.
Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake – this one has my Salted Caramel Sauce
Making Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake:
I originally found this recipe in Minnesota Monthly, published in the early ’90s. I’d had the cake before at Cafe Latte’s restaurant so it was a super exciting day when I saw the recipe in the magazine! I nabbed it right away, you betcha, and have been serving it ever since.
I do make a couple of changes when I make my version but didn’t change the recipe itself. The printable version is the original, with just a few helps and hints added.
- Cafe Latte uses pecans on top and in each layer. We are not huge nut people, so I use a few pecans to decorate. If you love pecans…you do you!
- Cafe Latte’s recipe calls for a jarred caramel topping and I like Mrs. Richardson’s. I do prefer my homemade salted caramel sauce. I think it tastes better and isn’t as “oozy.” You can see the difference in my pics.
As for the ganache, sometimes the package weights of chocolate chips are changed by the manufacturer. I use Nestle and measured the amount so the recipe will work if/when the package weight changes again. If the chips used are in a different size or shape it will skew the amount of chocolate.
Since this is so easy to make, the only other hint I think is to make sure you have the time and space to refrigerate the cake and set the chocolate ganache and caramel. After the cake has firmed up, it can be brought out ahead of serving but the cake will slip and slide if it gets too warm.
Toffee Caramel Cheesecake garnished with home-made Salted Caramel and Milky Way Bars
Serving:
- I believe I mentioned above but it’s worth mentioning again – serve this cake with vanilla ice cream.
- The cake really is almost too much without it!
Storing:
- Store on the counter, tightly wrapped, but if your kitchen is warm, keep it in the fridge. It will stay moist for several days.
- This may be frozen. Thaw overnight in the fridge.
Saving Money on Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake:
The best way to save money on this recipe is to have a well-stocked pantry and fridge full of sale-priced items. Using the buttermilk shortcut and making homemade caramel sauce saves money, too.
Baking items, if bought at a grocery store, are best bought on sale. The best sales are before one of the major food holidays when the prices are competitive. Before the holidays there’s going to be a new sale every week. Stock up when you see any item at a rock-bottom price.
Those sales will be in the few weeks before Easter and before Thanksgiving and continuing through the New Year. You’ll save on minor holidays but the cuts might not be as deep. Check out what might be on sale before any holiday on my post: Win at the Grocer. Do watch for random sales throughout the year, too.
Other than the regular grocery, fabulous places to buy baking goods are discount grocers like Aldi or Lidl. Buyers Clubs can be great for nuts and chocolate chips, but many baking items have to be purchased in larger quantities.
Hi Guys,
I hope you’ll love this cake as much as we have over the years, and if you love chocolate and caramel I promise I’m not overselling it! It’s fabulous and so easy, and I’d like to add that it looks much better in person – my pics do not do it justice!
Mollie
Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake
Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake
- Total Time: 50 minutes + cool & chill time
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake:
- 1 egg
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 cups flour
- 1 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup hot coffee
- Ganache (see recipe, below)
- 1 cup of thick caramel sauce like Mrs. Richardon’s or my Salted Caramel Sauce
- 2 cups toasted pecans (Use your judgment)
Chocolate Ganache:
- 2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate pieces
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
- 3 tablespoons butter, cut up
- 1 – 2 teaspoons (or more) hot coffee
Instructions
To make cake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease three 8-inch cake pans. Do not use a springform pan. Line the bottom of each pan with parchment paper. Grease the paper; dust with unsweetened cocoa powder. Tap out any excess. Set pans aside.
In a small bowl, stir together egg, buttermilk, and oil; set aside. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until combined. Gradually beat in hot coffee. Pour batter into prepared pans. (Layers will appear shallow.)
Bake 30 – 35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool cakes on wire racks for 10 minutes. Run a knife between cake and pan sides, then remove cakes from pans. Peel off paper; cool thoroughly.
To assemble:
When the cakes are cool, make the Turtle Ganache.
Place 1 cake layer, top-side down, onto a serving plate with a lip. Using an icing spatula or wide knife, work quickly to top with one-third of the ganache, “petalling” the ganache by swirling it out from the center leaving a slight lip around the outside edges. (The final effect will look like petals on a flower. There’s no need to be perfect – the point is to have a kind of scalloped lip around the top outside of the cake layer. Arrange one-third of the pecans on top and drizzle with 1/4 cup caramel.
Top with the second layer, again top-side down. Repeat with ganache, pecans, and 1/4 caramel topping.
Top with the third layer, right side up. Repeat with remaining ganache, pecans, and 1/2 cup caramel topping.
The caramel and some of the ganache will ooze a bit between the layers; the petalling will help control it.
Chill cake 1 to 2 hours before serving.
Notes:
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand when preparing this cake, substitute sour milk in the same amount. For each cup of sour milk needed, place 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar in a glass measuring cup. Add enough milk to make 1 cup total liquid; stir. Let mixture stand for 5 minutes before using.
If you only have two cake pans, refrigerate 1/3 of the batter while you bake the other two layers. Clean and prepare one of the pans as directed, and bake remaining batter.
Chocolate Ganache:
Place chocolate chips in a medium-sized bowl, set aside. In a small saucepan, combine sugar, milk and butter. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Immediately pour over chips and mix until smooth. Ganache should be thick like fudge but shiny.
If ganache is too thick or is grainy, stir in 1 to 2 teaspoons (or more) hot coffee. It should smooth it out and bring it together. If, on the other hand, the ganache seems too thin, let stand for several minutes before using.
Nutrition facts:
Servings Per Recipe 12, Calories 496, Carb. (g) 94, Potassium (mg) 274, pro. (g) 8, Trans fatty acid (g) 0, vit. C (mg) 1, vit. A (IU) 243, Riboflavin (mg) 0, sugar (g) 73, Thiamin (mg) 0, fiber (g) 4, Pyridoxine (Vit. B6) (mg) 0, Polyunsaturated fat (g) 7, Niacin (mg) 2, Monounsaturated fat (g) 19, Cobalamin (Vit. B12) (µg) 0, Folate (µg) 44, sat. fat (g) 10, chol. (mg) 35, sodium (mg) 629, Fat, total (g) 36, cal. (kcal) 697, iron (mg) 3, calcium (mg) 101
__________________________________________________
I’ll be taking Cafe Lattes Mabels Turtle Cake to the Fiesta Friday 100 anniversary extravaganza. A big shout out to Angie from Fiesta Friday, Steffi from Ginger&Bread, Suzanne from APugintheKitchen, and Judi from CookingwithAuntJuju for co-hosting with me.
I’ll post to Throwback Thursday, a link party co-hosted by Moi, Alli, Quinn & Meaghan!
Pingback: {Baking Challenge} Chicken a la King Vol au Vents for Fiesta Friday #100 | thenotsocreativecook