How to Make Turkey Sugar Cookies
The holiday season is fast approaching and for me that means a lot of fun! I love baking, buying gifts, wrapping gifts, decorating and pretty much everything else that other people consider “work”. I love to have the kids help out when they can and baking is a great way to include them. Get ready for Thanksgiving and make these adorable turkey sugar cookies together!
Turkey Sugar Cookies Ingredient List
- 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 cup shortening
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 cups flour (more if needed – add until dough isn’t sticky)
Turkey Sugar Cookies Instructions
- Cream the sugar and shortening.
- Beat the eggs
- Add the eggs, milk, vanilla, baking powder and salt and mix on high speed until fully combined.
- Slowly add the flour – add above 4 cups if the dough is still sticky.
- Refrigerate the dough until chilled.
- Roll on a lightly floured surface.
- Cut into circles (roughly 4 inches in diameter)
- Bake at 375 until lightly browned – roughly 10-12 minutes.
The kids love to help make the dough (and sneak pieces too!) – they take turns adding the ingredients to the stand mixer. I love that they are getting to the age where I can ask them to find a certain size measuring cup and they can do it correctly! Since I bake frequently with the kids its fun to watch them and see how they change and become much more independent as time goes by. We made these cookies over two days, the first day we made the dough and chilled it. The second day we rolled the cookies, baked them, and decorated.
Turkey Sugar Cookies Decoration Ingredients
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (regular or mini sized)
- Reese’s Pieces (orange colored – or could be orange M&M’s)
- Candy eyes (I used these)
- Candy corn
- Red and white frosting (you can make your own with this recipe or buy the pre-made decorating tubes)
Turkey Sugar Cookies Decoration Instructions
- Put a dab of white frosting on the top of the peanut butter cup (the wider side), attach to the center of the sugar cookie
- Put a dab of white frosting on the back side of the two eyes, attach to the top of the peanut butter cup (for a mini sized peanut butter cup the eyes will hang off the sides)
- Put a dab of white frosting directly on the peanut butter cup under the eyes and stick a Reese’s Pieces in the frosting standing up
- Put a dab of white frosting on one side of the candy corn (we used seven but you can use as many as you like) – attach them to the sugar cookie about the peanut butter cup
- Use the red frosting to make a waddle coming off the bottom of the peanut butter cup
These turkeys are a great way to use up some leftover Halloween candy – almost everything you need to make the turkey’s with your kids probably got while trick-or-treating. My kids had a blast making their turkeys. They shared the frosting and worked together (which doesn’t always happen!). The result were some beautiful turkeys that the kids were proud to show off to their Daddy. They couldn’t wait until they finished dinner to eat their turkeys!
DISCLAIMER: Turkeys may not last long enough to make it to Thanksgiving dinner!
We had a lot of fun making these adorable turkey sugar cookies and hope you do as well. If you are looking for some more inspiration take a look at some other fun Thanksgiving ideas below:
Thanksgiving Turkey Paper Craft
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Scavenger Hunt
Cranberry Raft STEAM Engineering Challenge
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