THE BIG WHITE CAKE, as it's referred to around the Southern Living office, is a huge deal to us each year. The dreamy desserts that have graced every December cover since 1995 involve dozens of meetings, months of planning, and a village of creative folks (recipe developers and testers, photographers, prop and food stylists, and a team of designers and editorsjust to name a few) to bring them to life. But one person deserves extra gifts from Santa this year: Senior Test Kitchen Recipe Developer Tricia Manzanero Stuedeman. She collected all of our varied ideas and hopes and transformed them into an elegant cake that's simple enough for any baker to pull off. "This project basically lived in my mind rent free for four months," Tricia recalls. "My husband and I would go for walks at night, and all I would talk about was the Big White Cake."

This year's showstopper had an additional twist-we wanted a recipe that would allow our readers to use the same components to make a layer cake, cupcakes, or a sheet cake. "It took a lot of math to figure that out," Tricia says with a laugh. "In the end, I was able to make it work with no waste. I'm pretty proud of that!" After she got the Brown Butter Cake just right and perfected the sweettart cranberry filling, she turned to the frosting, which is made with fluffy whipped cream and a secret ingredienta box of white chocolate pudding mix.

"The pudding stabilizes the whipped cream, so it spreads and pipes like a dream," she says. "It can be made two days ahead and refrigerated. It's kind of awesome." No cover cake would be complete without a topper, and our candy poinsettias are amazingly easy. "I don't consider myself a white chocolate savant by any means," Tricia admits. "If I can do it, anyone can." And you don't have to tackle them by yourself. "Invite a buddy over to help, and then catch up over a cup of coffee. Share the work, and share the love," she says.