Simple Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

Written by Mike Tamplin • Nov 10, 2014

Hello. Remember me? I used to blog about cookies, but seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth for 3 months. Well I'm back! I'm also totally fine, just needed a break and a recharge after what I would call "cookie burnout." I'm kind of sad I didn't come back from my hiatus in time to do Halloween cookies this year. However, I'm excited to share a few ideas for the upcoming (and my most favorite) holiday, Thanksgiving!

There are tons of awesome Thanksgiving turkey cookie ideas out there. Here is just one other spin on the classic turkey cookie. My hope was to use a common cookie cutter shape, keep the overall design fairly simple, but also go for that somewhat "realistic" turkey look. The main inspiration for these Thanksgiving turkey cookies was from these beautiful peacock cookies by Anne of Flour Box Bakery. Below is my attempt at "turkey-fying" those peacocks.

Preparing the Dough

For these Thanksgiving turkey cookies, any round scalloped cookie cutter will do the job. The one I used was from this Betty Crocker cookie cutter set.

Before baking, cut out the shape from the dough and then trim off a bottom portion, as shown below.

The Decorating Process

Step 1

Using a smaller circle cutter, trace a circle on the cookie with a food marker. Make sure the circle sits just below the bottom edge before tracing. This will give the look of a sitting turkey.

Step 2

With dark brown piping icing, outline around the center circle and around the outer scalloped edge of the cookie. Then with different colored flood icing, fill in the center in a striped, ring design of your choosing. I started flooding with the dark brown scalloped edge then worked my way inwards.

Step 3

After the middle section is flooded and still wet, quickly drag a toothpick or scribe tool between each scallop towards the center of the cookie as shown below. Be sure to wipe the tip of the toothpick/ scribe tool after EACH swipe through the icing. Otherwise, you'll leave unwanted color all over the cookie.

Step 4

After the feather section had time to set, flood the middle section with light brown icing. Leave that to set for about 15 minutes, then pipe a wing in dark brown icing, and a "peanut-shape" for a head in a pink icing.

Step 5

Lastly, add the facial details. Pipe a black bead for the eye and a yellow arrow for the beak. Then, add the red snood over the beak. (Totally had to Google that term, BTW.)

Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in this time-lapsed video I put together.

Relatively simple, right? I went with a folksy, autumn color palette with these Thanksgiving turkey cookies. However, the colors can easily be adjusted to your liking. I image traditional Thanksgiving colors like burnt oranges, yellows, reds and greens would look fantastic as well.

For more Thanksgiving cookie ideas, please check out the following links: