and speaking of cupcakes...

My family does things a little differently for Thanksgiving. To avoid the stress of traveling with the hoards of "normal" people, we celebrate on Friday. It works out quite well, actually. We get an extra day to prepare the yummies, and those with spouses/significant others have the opportunity to celebrate with both families.

More often than not, we travel down to my brother's house near Philadelphia. My sister-in-law is a fantastic cook (though she humbly denies it), so she handles the basics of the meal, and the rest of us provide things like appetizers, wine, or an extra dessert or two.

The splendiferous cupcakes you see above are one of my contributions this year. Well, these are the ones left after I packed up the rest to go. They are devil's food cake, stuffed with creamy white filling (à la Hostess), and the tops are double dipped in chocolate ganache. This was my first time filling cupcakes, and it's not nearly as intimidating as I thought. After they cooled a bit, I stuck the handle of my wooden spoon into the tops of the cupcakes to make a little room for the filling. Then I just piped the filling in with a pastry tip. The frosting covers up the hole.

They do taste as good as they look (thank goodness). I had to test one for quality control, if you know what I mean. Hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday. I'm thankful for so many things — YOU among them!