Kawaii Turkey Sugar Cookies for Thanksgiving

Happy almost Thanksgiving in this pandemic era.  I know this holiday season will be so unlike others and families may or may not be getting together.  

To bring a little happiness I made some sugar cookies as "cute" turkeys! 

Every year I try making edible turkeys for Turkey day and I try to cute them up as real turkeys are far from cute!

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Start with a no spread cookie dough recipe.  I use this one from In Katrina's Kitchen and it works great every time.  It's kinda like making stuff with play-doh

I used mostly natural food colorants: 

yellow = tumeric

chartreuse = tumeric + matcha

orange = tumeric + drop orange food gel

pink = beet powder

brown = cocoa powder

green = matcha

purple = hibiscus powder

dark green = green spirulina

cream = no color

I was trying to figure out how to make the turkey feathers and decide to roll out balls and/or strips of colors

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Roll out 2 discs of color (1 slightly larger for the back and a smaller one for the head).  Then mix and match colors for tail feathers and smush them down a little.

OR you can roll out longer feathers and use brown discs for more traditional turkeys

Once baked add a candy-coated sunflower seed for a beak

Use a black food writer to add eyes and use red candy melt to add the gobbler thing!

The short and squat turkeys took way less time and I think they may even be cuter!

Do you think turkeys are cute? 

But more importantly, which do you like better??

Happy Thanksgiving & Stay Healthy!!!

Pastel Candy Thanksgiving Turkeys in Donuts

Turkey day is coming up this week in the US so that means I attempted cute turkey treats - again!

I found the most fun candy corn this year - pastel fruit cremes!  I loved the colors and knew I needed to do some fun treats with them so scooped up a bag and promptly forgot about it.

But luckily my kiddo found them and asked to try them.  

If you don't like regular candy corn - then you might like these.  Very fruity - still sweet but not like traditional candy corn.  I also had some white Lindor chocolates that someone gave me which I thought I could use for the turkey bodies (and I love it when I don't have to go buy more stuff for an idea!)

The pastel colors are so pretty!

And since I needed them to sit on top of something - I went with donuts.  Baked sweet potato donuts with cranberry glaze, which I thought was perfect for Thanksgiving.  Recipe linked for the donuts and the cranberry glaze is just some cranberry jelly mixed with a little milk and powdered sugar until you get a nice glaze-y consistency.

The rest of the turkey is a skittle chocolate, dab of yellow melted candy melt for beak, red sprinkle for waddler, and black edible marker for eyes.  Candy corn feathers are attached with white melted chocolate.

The turkeys are perched in little donut nests.  Do turkeys sit in nests? Well maybe not but they do look pretty cute all nestled in!

Well are the turkeys cute? Can you make a cute turkey? 

Thanksgiving is my fav holiday because it has all my fav foods.  Turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie - all my comfort foods on one plate!  I will definitely be indulging this week! What's your favorite Turkey Day food? And let me know if you think this year's turkeys are cute!

Here are some of my past turkey attempts! Which is your fav??

Easy Candy Turkeys

Marshmallow Peeps Pilgrim Turkeys

Pilgrim and Turkey Cupcake Toppers

Candy Melt Candy Turkeys

No Bake Mini Cookie Pops

Marshmallow Candy Turkeys

Malt Ball Candy Turkey Toppers

Thanksgiving Pilgrim Turkey Marshmallow Peeps

Hey all, here's yet another turkey treat!  I seem to be a little obsessed with the fowl of the season.  This time I'm using marshmallow Peeps chicks that are out right now and all that left over candy corn you probably have laying around.  

Add some little pilgrim hats just because you can.  

See the easy directions here at sheknows!

Here are the other super simple Candy Turkeys (in case you missed them!)

Super Easy Candy Turkeys for Turkey Day

So it seems every year I try to make edible turkeys since Turkey season aka Thanksgiving is fast approaching.  Making a cute turkey is not so easy for many reasons.  1) They are really not that cute of a real animal 2) You usually need to use brown for the body which can look a bit like - well just think about the poo emoji  3) It's kinda hard to make something that everyone eats for the main course - cute.  

But alas I try anyway!  

This year I went for really really really simple.  You'll need a few candies.  It's a great way to use up all the candy corn you may have left over from Halloween (or go grab some on super sale now at all the stores!)

Peppermint patties make up the "body".  I had leftover heart shapes from Valentine's Day but you could also use regular mini peppermint patty candies.  Eyes are made from royal icing which after dried you add the black part with an edible candy writer.  My other favorite candy to use for projects is candy coated sunflower seeds.  They are used as the "beak" and a piece of red licorice as the gobbler thing.

Enjoy as is or use as cookie or cupcake toppers!

Welcome to November and Turkey season!  I'm already starting to see holiday and Christmas goodies over on Pinterest so I'm get ready for all the yummies on deck!

Here are some of my past turkey attempts! Which is your fav??

Pilgrim and Turkey Cupcake Toppers

Candy Melt Candy Turkeys

No Bake Mini Cookie Pops

Marshmallow & Candy Turkeys

Malt Ball & Candy Turkey Toppers

How To Make Candy Turkeys 

Ingredients:

• Candy corn - in various colors and flavors
• Heart shaped mini peppermint patties (if you can't find hearts you can use round mini peppermint patties)
• Yellow candy coated sunflower seeds
• Red licorice strings
• Candy eyes (made with royal icing or you can buy pre-made candy eyes)
• Chocolate chips or candy melt (as glue)

Directions:

1. Add 1/2 cup of chips/wafers to a quart size freezer bag and microwave on high for 15 second intervals until just melted (usually 3-4 intervals)
2. Snip an end of the bag and "pipe" the chocolate glue onto the small ends of 5 candy corns.  Arrange in a fan shape.  Attach the back of the chocolate patty to the candy corn as in photo.
3. Use melted chocolate and attach eyes, sunflower seed as beak.
4. Cut 1/2 inch of licorice and attach with melted chocolate as the gobbler.

Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Hash Brown Waffles

Are you still in your food coma from Thanksgiving?? Or maybe you've been Black Friday shopping all day?? Well I hope you are able to relax and enjoy a bit this long holiday weekend (in the US anyway, outside the US - Happy Friday!).  

And if you have any leftover sweet potato, pumpkin, and/or cranberries, maybe you can make these fun waffles for a yummy brunch this weekend.

More savory than sweet, they are kinda like Thanksgiving day in waffle form!

Check out the full recipe and more over at SheKnows!

Candy Turkey Toppers for Thanksgiving

Guys!!! Thanksgiving is this week! How the heck did that happen? I keep thinking I have like 2 more weeks to prep.  More like 3 days, THREE DAYS! 

And for some reason I keep trying to make turkeys for Turkey Day.  I still can't quite get over the cute versus creepy turkey look.  But I think I know what the problemo is - real turkeys are freakin' scary!! 

I mean look at them:

(((Shivers))) It's almost impossible to make THAT look cute! 

But I did attempt turkeys again this year with candy - lots and lots of candy.

I found some fun malt balls at Whole Foods and thought they would make a good turkey body.  They also had solid color candy corn that I used for the tail feathers.  A sixlet and candy coated sunflower seed made the head and beak.  A single red sprinkle made a great turkey gobbler thing.  All candy "glued" together with melted chocolate (or you can use melted candy wafers).  To allow the turkeys to stand with out rolling round, attach to a square pretzel base.  

And you have all the makings for an evil army of turkeys for whatever your purposes are!

If you forgo the evil turkey world takeover plan, you can always just use them as fun toppers.  I added them to cupcakes (duh) and little pumpkin spice pudding cups.

  

Now that I look closely at real turkey photos, these candy ones are like 1000X cuter.  

I have to remember life is all about perspective.  

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I'm truly so thankful for everything I have.  Life is indeed good.

Eat lots of yummy food and enjoy the good times.  Thanks for stopping by!

Thanksgiving Cupcakes with Pilgrim, American Indian, and Turkey Candy Toppers

So if you read the blog, then you probably know I have a thing for making little people out of candy for the holidays.  Witches, Uncle Sam, Santa, Leprechauns, the Harry Potter Gang, Gnomes, American Presidents, and Disney Princesses.

That's A LOT of little people - I may have a slight problem!  But since I had yet to do them for turkey day, I figured this was the year to try.

Overall, they are all made in the same way as the little Uncle Sams.  You need chocolate Hershey's Chocolate Bells (or you can use Hershey's Kisses too), vanilla Tootsie Rolls, candy melts in various colors (I use Wilton Candy Melts), mini marshmallows, candy coated sunflowers seeds, sprinkles, and edible food writers.

To dip the bodies more easily, I always twist a toothpick into the bottom of the chocolate, then dip it into a shallow dish of the melted candy melt.  Add a tiny bit of vegetable shortening to make the candy more smooth.  Works like a charm every time.

All the rest of the detail is just done by hand and one little person at a time.  The American Indians are one of my fav.  To get the skin color a little darker than the vanilla tootsie roll, I colored the round tootsie roll ball with a brown edible food writer, then just rolled it a bit in my hand so the color was more uniform.  The feathers are candy coated sunflower seeds.  The eyes are made with black food writer and the rest of the detail is all candy melts.

For the pilgrim hat pipe a small disc of candy melt, while still wet, attach a mini marshmallow.  Once dried, dip the marshmallow in black candy melt.  Once candy is set, add detail with more candy melt or use a large yellow sprinkle.

The turkeys are made with a chocolate tootsie roll as the body and 1/2 of a vanilla tootsie roll as the head.  I only melt the tootsie roll candy in the microwave for about 8 seconds, then roll into a ball.  Feathers and beak are candy coated sunflower seeds attached with candy melt.  Eyes are added with a black food writer.  I probably could have added a red sprinkle as the turkey gobble thingee, but I forgot!  The pumpkins are just store bought that I scored for cheap after Halloween.

Then just top them on some super yum cupcakes.  These are made from a Betty Crocker Spice flavored mix and topped with some homemade cream cheese frosting.  They kinda scream Thanksgiving and they are super tasty!

Thanks for indulging yet ANOTHER little people post.  Say in a couple months I start going into withdrawals and NEEDED to make more little people.  Who would you suggest??! 

How's this, if I make your suggestion, I will send them to you!  Leave a comment below and tell me who you would love to see in candy form and make sure you leave a way for me to contact you (because if I do make them I will most definitely send you some!).  Seriously, I will.

Thanks for swinging by, and have a totally awesome week!!!

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