How to Make Turkey Cupcakes Thanksgiving Recipe

Easy, Fun Thanksgiving Dessert Baking Activity for Parents and Kids

Nov 1, 2008

In this family recipe, parents and children use baked cupcakes and cookies to make seasonal Thanksgiving desserts that look like turkeys. Decorate them in many ways!

Using only cut cookies, cupcakes, lollipop sticks, and some frosting and icing, you and your child can create a flock of delicious turkey cupcakes for a fall party, Thanksgiving gathering, or afternoon snack in autumn.

For safety reasons, parents should be in charge of moving items in and out of the oven. Depending on age and level of ability, children can get involved in this recipe by:

mixing up cupcake batter
preparing cupcake pans
drawing and cutting out the turkey head and feather cookie cutter patterns
measuring ingredients and mixing up cookie dough
preparing cookie sheets
rolling out and cutting cookie shapes
decorating the cupcake turkeys
assembling the turkey cupcakes

How to Make the Body of a Turkey Cupcake

Use a pan around the size of the Wilton 6 Cup Jumbo Muffin Pan to make the cupcake bodies. Smaller cupcakes may fall apart when stuck with heavy cookies on sticks.
Spray the cups of your pan with no-stick spray, pick cupcake papers in a neutral or brown color, or plan to peel papers off after baking.
Make cupcakes from your favorite mix. If you do not plan to frost your cupcakes, the mix you use will determine the color of the body of your turkeys.
Set cupcakes aside to cool.

How to Make the Head and Feathers of a Turkey Cupcake

On cardstock or cardboard, trace the outline of an adult index finger from fingertip to the second knuckle to make your feather pattern. Then draw the outline of a peanut shape that is roughly the same length to make your head pattern.
Cut out your patterns.
Use prepared sugar cookie dough or mix up a batch of your favorite cut cookie dough.
Cut out one head for each cupcake you have baked. Before baking the heads, gently insert a 4-inch lollipop stick into the bottom of each one, slowly twisting it back and forth as you insert it, until the stick is halfway into the cookie.
Cut out at least five or six feathers for each cupcake you have baked. Cut 4-inch lollipop sticks in half to make one 2-inch stick for each feather. Before baking the feathers, gently insert one 2-inch stick halfway into the bottom of each one. (NOTE: If you plan to glaze the feathers with egg yolk paint, do this now before baking.)
After baking, let cookies cool until set enough to be handled without falling off their sticks.

How to Decorate the Parts of a Turkey Cupcake

You might:

Leave the cupcakes unfrosted or frost the cupcake bodies with chocolate frosting, white frosting, or tinted frosting.
Use fondant or royal icing to draw eyes, a beak, and a red wattle on the turkey heads.
Use royal icing, buttercream icing, or frosting to frost the feathers different colors.
Decorate iced/frosted feathers with sprinkles, colored sugars, nonpareils, or other sugar decorations.
Glaze the feathers with egg yolk paint.
Pipe fondant or royal icing to add detail to the feathers.

How to Assemble the Parts of a Turkey Cupcake

Place the cupcake body in the center of a plate or on a platter next to many other turkey cupcake bodies.
Gently insert the head (face facing outward) on one edge of the top of the cupcake body.
Gently stick the feathers (decorated sides facing inward) along the back edge of the opposite side of the top of the cupcake body. Place them in a fanned line or stagger them.

Allow your child to use his or her imagination to adapt this recipe in fun ways. For example, you could use a Wilton Giant Cupcake Cast Pan to make one huge turkey or you could ice letters onto the turkey feather cookies to spell out people's names or "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Children may also enjoying making a Pilgrim hat cupcake dessert or cut cookies shaped like handprint turkeys.

The copyright of the article How to Make Turkey Cupcakes Thanksgiving Recipe in Kids Cooking is owned by Renee Carver. Permission to republish How to Make Turkey Cupcakes Thanksgiving Recipe in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.