Albino Chocolate Turtles

Christmas is fast approaching and this particular holiday always puts me in the mood to make cookies or sweets. tons and tons of cookies and sweets.

I've never made turtles before and normally i don't get to eat the commercial kind since they are typically made of chocolate only (something I am allergic to), but when I received this month's Everyday Food issue, I found a simple recipe for them that could easily be modified to include white chocolate as well and decided to give it a go.

Below is a picture of how mine turned out and the recipe (including the alteration notes) ->

Aren't they so cute? I had a few beefy legged ones, but still - adorable =o

Ingredients

48 roasted cashews**
12 toasted hazelnuts (skinless)**
12 soft caramels
4oz semisweet chocolate chips (or 2oz each chocolate chips and 2oz white chocolate chips)
12 pecan halves, toasted***

NOTES: **for the cashews and hazelnuts, I just bought a generic can of low salt mixed nuts that had both cashews and hazelnuts in them, then rinsed the salt off and pat dried them.
*** I used praline pecan halves for mine as per the pic above because I had a bag of them on hand, but you can also make sure the mixed nut can has pecan halves and rinse them too if you like. The praline pecan halves made the turtles taste awesome though, for fyi.
**** I used foil instead of the parchment asked for below because as it is with most electric stoves that I've found parchment burns and sets off the fire alarms. I don't like setting them off so I use the dull side of the foil now when recipes ask for parchment ~_~

1) Preheat oven to 375 (F, don't know what the C conversion is). On a parchment**** lined rimmed baking sheet, make 12 clusters by arranging 4 cashews and 1 hazelnut (the cashews will be the tortoises' legs and the hazelnuts are the heads). With your fingers, gently flatten caramels and place them on top of the clusters (you have to set them on top gently because the nuts like to scatter if you try to press them down).

2) Bake until caramels just begin to melt; 6-8 mins (it was 5 for me). Meanwhile, microwave chocolate in 10 second intervals (it took 20 second intervals for me), stirring in between each interval until melted. Dollop 1 ts chocolate on top of each caramel/nut cluster then top with a pecan, pressing in softly. Refrigerate until chocolate sets, about 30 mins (and up to 2 days).

Bring to room temp before eating (I highly suggest you do this otherwise it's like trying to eat a hard turtle toffee. It'll break your teeth xD)

Enjoy!