My First Turkey

Thanksgiving is a magical time.  Family gathers from all of the United States to reconnect, spend time together and, of course, eat delicious meals.  The center of Thanksgiving is the turkey and the stuffing.  This year, as my family gathers, I have the wonderful opportunity to dive into my hobby of cooking and baking all weekend!

I'm roasting my first turkey.  A remarkable task, as it is the main dish for the meal today.  I chose Saveur's Herbed Roast Turkey Recipe.  Using a high fat butter - Kerrygold Unsalted - with thyme, sage, paprika and brown sugar as an herb butter sauce.  I've already basted the turkey three times with this delicious mixture.  In the cavity I mixed the carrots, onion, celery and lemon wedges to help give the turkey an impeccable flavor.

I added more water to the roaster to ensure an extremely moist turkey.  The house is filling with the smells Thanksgiving brings.  My mouth is already watering waiting for the turkey to come out of the roaster.  


A few hours pass and the turkey is ready!  The skin is browned and crisp from the butter herb mix.  And just as I had hoped, the turkey is falling off the bone - moist to perfection.  My dad carves the turkey as we taste test.  Once we get to the bottom, he looks at me and says "now this is the best part" pointing to the carrots and bits of meat that have fallen into the bottom of the pan with the juices of the turkey.  Heavenly.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Love for Pumpkin

I was inspired this week to create a pumpkin buttercream frosting.  Which then led to what do I put the pumpkin frosting on top of - a chocolate cupcake, vanilla?  Why not just dive in pumpkin first - Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Pumpkin Buttercream Frosting.  Now that's a mouthful of pumpkin!

So I began doing some research on recipes.  What makes the best pumpkin cupcake?  So many choices!  I decided I wanted a really good pumpkin flavor, so I began by using 3/4 cup pumpkin puree.  Attempting to simulate a pumpkin pie flavor while keeping a nice cake texture, I added nutmeg and cinnamon to help bring out the flavor.


The batter reached the flavor I was going for, so into the oven they went!  I brought the cupcakes out slightly early to make sure they were as moist as possible.  

The cupcakes came out perfectly.  Time for the pumpkin buttercream!  Traditional buttercream only uses butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.  To amp this up with pumpkin flavor I added 3/4 cup pumpkin puree, cinnamon, ginger, salt and pumpkin pie spice.  The texture is very similar to buttercream, but be sure to use less milk so it isn't too soft.  The flavor is unbelievable.  Pumpkin on pumpkin, it doesn't get better than this!