thanksgiving

Thanksgiving - credit to Collin for his work on the turkey and a majority of the cooking. We were busy eating, so this is the only food picture we took.

It was a special occasion b/c this was our niece's first Thanksgiving - here she is getting to know the cats!

hostess cupcake make over

My husband and I watched an episode of Cooks Country from PBS where they make these cupcakes.
They are a remake of the classic hostess cupcake. I really love Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/and also Cooks Country. They are chefs and food scientists.

The recipe is called chocolate cream cupcakes and it's free on their  website (recipes from their shows are free, and there's also further archives access for a fee). for the free one, you need to register with your email address at http://www.cookscountrytv.com/

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes which is a perfect amount. Well maybe it could be a little bigger yield, since while the cupcakes were cooling, a few cupcakes were lost to taste testing...

cut out the top to make a space for the filling

the filling is a mixture of marshmallow cream, butter, and gelatin
and what would a cupcake be with out the curly Q frosting? still working on the uniformity! but they are quite delicious. Thanks, Test Kitchen!