Cute Turkey Sugar Cookies

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The holiday season is fast approaching and that means a lot of fun for most everyone! If you love baking, decorating, and “all the things,” this is your time of year! It’s also fun 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

1. Cream the sugar and shortening.
2. Beat the eggs
3. Add the eggs, milk, vanilla, baking powder, and salt and mix on high speed until fully combined.
4. Slowly add the flour – add above 4 cups if the dough is still sticky.
5. Refrigerate the dough until chilled.
6. Roll on a lightly floured surface.
7. Cut into circles (roughly 4 inches in diameter)
8. Bake at 375 until lightly browned – roughly 10-12 minutes.

Your kids will probably love to help make the dough (and sneak pieces too!). You can let them take turns adding the ingredients to the mixer, or find the right size measuring cup!  If you bake frequently with your kids, you will watch how they change and grow much more independent as time goes by.  

These turkey sugar cookies might be good to stretch over two days. On the first day, you can make the dough and chill it.  Then, on the second day, you can roll out the cookies, bake and decorate them.

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, and attach them 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 turkeys with your kids probably got while trick-or-treating. I hope your kids have a blast making their turkeys and working together!

DISCLAIMER: Turkeys may not last long enough to make it to Thanksgiving dinner!

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 STEM Engineering Challenge
• Easy Fall Pies

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