Thanksgiving memories from the test kitchen

After completing culinary school, I was privileged enough to land an awesome internship inside of Family Circle Magazine’s test kitchens. I met many amazing chefs who inspired me to follow my dreams, as well as assisted me in learning new skills specific to magazine food editing and recipe development. I have special memories of spending hours in the kitchen testing and re-testing recipes until they were just perfect!

In the magazine world, deadlines for the holidays begin in the summer…hence in the test kitchen it really seems like Christmas in July! I was fortunate enough to be able to test the below Thanksgiving dessert last summer and it is now in print for everyone to try (see Family Circle's November issue, pg 176). It’s super easy for such a cute masterpiece.

Directions:

1. Generously grease 12 cup mini bunt pan (about 2” width). Don’t go too crazy searching for this exact pan…I used 4” mini bunt pan and the grooves were not as defined, but they still look like a cute little pumpkins.

     

2. Prepare Devil’s Food Cake box mix per box directions, but substitute milk or buttermilk for water.

3. Fill mini bunt pan half way with batter. Learn from my mistakes and don’t overfill the muffin tins....results include feeling really sick from overeating mass quantities of extra large muffin tops!

4. Cook in mini bunt pans for 15-20 minutes. Tooth pick inserted in center should come out clean. 

(Mine were larger tins and came out perfectly at 20 minutes)

5. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 5 minutes and then overturn onto cooling wrack. Once completely cool, use a serrated knife to cut off muffin tops to create a level surface.

(save muffin tops for later snacking)

6. Frost one flat side of cake to act as glue and place the other cake on top. Press down gently.

7. Decorate as desired! Scope out the magazine for lots of great decorating ideas. 

I chose to warm up the icing (5 seconds) and then drizzled it on top,

then garnished with orange sprinkles,

Kit Kat candy bar for stem.

(Other stem ideas- pretzel sticks, Twix bars, or brown licorice)

Happy Thanksgiving!