I've never done that, but I did see in the recent The Week Magazine the recipe for Butterflied Turkey with Cranberry-molasses Glaze. Apparently it's from ATK. I've cut and pasted that recipe here in case you are interested. (Hope this is ok.)

Glazed roast turkey: A better path to the perfect centerpiece

Forget trying to reproduce the photogenic turkeys you see on many magazine covers, said the editors at America’s Test Kitchen in The Cook’s Illustrated Meat Book. You have to glaze the bird to get that “gorgeously bronzed” look, and glazing a whole turkey is “a lot trickier than it looks.” A glaze typically turns the skin rubbery, and “most glazes slide right off.”

If what you’re really after are optimum taste and texture, there is a solution: We recommend butterflying the turkey so the meat cooks more evenly, then roasting the bird twice: once at a moderate 275 degrees and then, to crisp the skin, at 450. The molasses glaze is brushed on at the end, resulting in crackly skin; a tangy-sweet coating; and “juicy, flavorful” meat.

Recipe of the week

Butterflied turkey with cranberry-molasses glaze
## One 12- to 14-lb turkey, neck, giblets, and tailpiece discarded
## Kosher salt and pepper
## 2 tsp baking powder
## 2 large onions, halved
## 3 cups apple cider
## 1 cup frozen or fresh cranberries
## 1⁄2 cup each molasses and cider vinegar
## 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
## 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
## 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 2 pieces

Using kitchen shears, cut along both sides of backbone to remove it. Using your fingers, gently loosen skin covering breast and thighs. Using a skewer, poke holes in the fat deposits atop breast and thighs (4 to 5 holes per deposit). Rub bone side of turkey with 2 tsp salt combined with 1 tsp pepper. Flip turkey skin side up and rub 1 tbsp salt evenly under skin. Tuck wings under turkey. Push legs up to rest on lower portion of breast, and tie legs together with kitchen twine.

Combine 1 tbsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, and baking powder in bowl. Rub salt mixture all over turkey skin. Transfer turkey to roasting pan, skin side up. To elevate turkey, place an onion half under each breast and thigh. Let turkey stand at room temperature 1 hour.

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat to 275 degrees. Roast��"for roughly 21⁄2 to 3 hours��"until breast registers 160 and thighs register 175. Remove from pan and let rest 30 to 90 minutes. Thirty minutes before returning turkey to oven, increase oven temperature to 450.

Meanwhile, bring cider, molasses, vinegar, mustard, and ginger to boil in medium saucepan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until reduced to 11⁄2 cups, about 30 minutes. Strain through mesh strainer into a liquid measuring cup. You should have about 11⁄4 cups. Transfer 1⁄2 cup glaze to a saucepan and set aside.

Brush turkey with roughly 1⁄3 cup of glaze remaining in cup, transfer to oven, and roast 7 minutes. Repeat twice more, letting turkey roast on last round until skin is evenly browned and crisp (up to 10 minutes). Transfer turkey to carving board; let rest 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, discard onions. Strain liquid from pan into fat separator (you should have about 2 cups). Discard fat. Pour liquid into saucepan with reserved glaze, bring to boil, and reduce until slightly syrupy, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in butter. Carve turkey, passing sauce separately. Serves 10 to 12.

The Week

November 21, 2014

I actually did that one time back in 2003.

I never did again, so I guess I wasn't overly impressed.

~Ann

I've done it in the steam oven and got fab results. I made the stuffing separately, however, with rich chicken stock instead of drippings. I put sprigs of rosemary under the skin and put wine in the bottoms of the pans. The ATK recipe is only for members, but I can't imagine it's not good. Roast turkey is pretty hard to mess up if you have a good quality bird. :)

Go for the parts! It's very liberating. :)

If you are just going to roast the legs and breast separately, I agree with Plllog. Go for it. But if you are going to follow Julia's method of boning out the legs and stuffing them separately like I did, I wouldn't bother. It wasn't that it was difficult, I just didn't find it worth the effort.

If I'm going to bone out a turkey or a chicken I would rather bone it out whole.

~Ann

Curious what you ended up doing cloud_swift. I am just coming to see this now. This was my first time hosting Thanksgiving and I'm trying to gather ideas NOW for next year. I've already been told that I WILL be having it again next year...that now that the torch has been passed to this generation, the previous one will not take it back. :)

I asked MIL to come do as much as possible here with me in my new kitchen. She's been doing the Julia Childs' deboned turkey for 30-some years. Her initial reason for doing it was that they'd have Thanksgiving dinner up in a mountain cabin with a very, very little kitchen and she didn't want to have to do any more clean up or prep than she had to while there. So she'd usually do that on Tues or Wed and take it up to the cabin boned. The only bones left are drumstick bones and the clean up is much easier. And as others have said, the bonus is you can cook the white and dark meats for different amounts of time.

We did it here Wednesday. She did 85% of it, I did one of the thigh/leg parts. I could do it myself if I wanted to. I haven't decided yet if I will next year.

My biggest issues with the turkey et al were that I think my oven temp is still low (even though the guy has been out to calibrate and assures me it's fine) so it took longer than it should have (which was still a lot less time than if it wasn't deboned, AND there weren't a lot of drippings for gravy (but I don't think that would have changed with cooking it whole).

Hi Cal Quail, I decided to try it out using the America's Test Kitchen recipe. It is similar to but not exactly the same as Julia's recipe. It worked out quite well.

The gravy made from a stock with the turkey back and neck had good flavor and it was nice being able to make it ahead. The shorter cooking time for the turkey was nice and the skin was crisp.

DH really liked the stuffing baked under the turkey. The bread for the stuffing was a yeast risen cornbread loaf.

I think I'll use this method again. I didn't find the prep that much work - just trading prep time for carving time later.

Cloud-Swift, did you also bone out and stuff the legs separately?

~Ann

I removed the thigh bone from the legs, sprinkled some salt, pepper and minced fresh sage on the meat. Then closed them back up with skewers and cooking twine. So they were partially deboned and seasoned but not stuffed.