Turkey Sugar Cookies for Thanksgiving

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Turkey cookies for have never been more fun! These Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies feature a simple sugar cookie with peanut butter cups, mini chocolate candies and candy eyes, offering up an adorable cookie that is sure to be a hit with all ages. Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies are the best way to enjoy a special treat at your school party or Thanksgiving dinner celebration and are as fun to make as they are to eat!

When I think of baking for the holidays, I usually think of sugar cookies for the Christmas season and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. But who says you can’t decorate some fun cookies for Thanksgiving too? When it comes to baking cookies, I say the more the merrier!

I love these Turkey Sugar Cookies created by Jill Schultz and inspired by these turkey peanut butter cookies from Bake at 350.  They are colorful and such a fun Thanksgiving treat.  Imagine showing up to a Thanksgiving get together with these adorable turkeys in tow?  As an added bonus, they would work great as fun activity for kids like this turkey made of fruit and veggies. Jill gave each of her young kids a cookie to decorate and they loved it. Serve these sugar cookies with this delicious pumpkin juice which can also be offered warm as a pumpkin cider. Your choice!

Turkey Sugar Cookie Ingredients

I’ve seen a wide variety of Thanksgiving turkey cookies. Many include products like candy corn candies, malted milk balls, golden oreos, milano cookies, mini pretzels, or a fudge stripe cookie. But this recipe uses the following simple ingredients to create easy turkey cookies!

• Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix (or your favorite homemade recipe or refrigerated sugar cookie dough)
• Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups
• M&M’s Chocolate Candies
• Reese’s Pieces Peanut Butter Mini Baking Chips (These were found at Walmart but you can also substitute M&M Mini candies.)
• Wilton red candy melts (or red icing)
• small candy eyes

These turkey sugar cookies are a great way to use up that leftover Halloween candy like Halloween cookie pizza. Wilton products like the candy melts and small candy eyes featured here can be found in the Wilton baking or seasonal aisle at craft stores and major retailers including Michael’s, JoAnnFabrics, Walmart and Target. Likewise, you can purchase Wilton items online, including these candy eyes at Amazon! (Just be careful for items that may have had the prices significantly marked up.)

Decorated Turkey Cookies

Because this recipe uses a lot of mixes and all ready made products, it is an easy way to focus on the decorating and less on the actual baking. No need for a cookie cutter or piping bag. Feel free to change things up to suite your family and your schedule. You can swap out your favorite cookie recipe or even consider purchasing plain sugar cookies from your grocery store bakery to make it even more convenient.

How to Make Turkey Cookies

Regardless of whether you are baking your sugar cookies from a mix or homemade recipe, be sure to cool them completely to room temperature before you start decorating turkey sugar cookies.

1. Spread a small dollop of chocolate frosting onto the top of each mini peanut butter cup and place on the cookie. This is will be the turkey body.
2. Next, spread a small amount of chocolate frosting onto the back of each candy eye and place on the turkey body to create a turkey face. The frosting will act like your glue.
3. Next comes the turkey feathers. Take one color at a time and put a little bit of frosting on the back of the M&M’s using a toothpick to line the turkey’s body properly. I used yellow, red and mini orange M&M’s along with orange mini Reese’s Pieces. It doesn’t have to be perfect and you could even use brown if you wish. Have fun with it.
4. Finally, melt your red candy melts in a microwavable safe dish in 20 second increments stirring every 20 seconds until melted. My microwave took about 1 minute for this but cooking time will vary.
5. Let the melted chocolate cool 2-3 minutes and scoop into the sandwich baggie. Snip the corner with a pair of scissors and give each turkey a mouth and complete your turkey’s face. Red cookie icing is a great alternative to the candy melts or you could use red frosting.
   

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Turkey Sugar Cookies

Turkey cookies have never been easier than these Turkey Sugar Cookies for Thanksgiving! Featuring a simple sugar cookie with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, mini chocolate candies and candy eyes, these cookies are fun Thanksgiving treat to add to your celebration!

Course Dessert

Keyword cookies, cute cookies, decorating, Kid friendly, school party, sugar cookies, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dessert, Thanksgiving dessert table, turkey cookies

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 14 minutes

Cooling Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 44 minutes

Author Jill Schultz, Inspired by Bake at 350 Degrees

Ingredients

• 1 package of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix (or your favorite refrigerated sugar cookie dough or homemade sugar cookie recipe to make 2 dozen cookies)
• 24 Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cups
• 1 tub (16 oz) Chocolate frosting (or homemade)
• 1 pkg (10.53 oz) M&M's Milk chocolate candies (red, orange, yellow)
• 1 pkg (10 oz) Reese's Peanut Putter Mini Baking Chips (or M&M minis in red, orange yellow)
• ¼ cup Wilton red candy melts (or red cookie icing)
• 24 Wilton small candy eyes

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Mix the Betty Crocker sugar cookie dough according to package directions (1 stick of butter softened and 1 egg) and place the dough in the fridge for about 20 minutes to set up.
3. Remove the dough from the fridge and use a small cookie scoop to scoop the dough and then roll into even balls. You might need some flour on your hands for this as the dough might be sticky.
4. Bake according the the package directions and let cool.

Assembling your Turkeys

1. Spread a small dollop of chocolate frosting onto the top of each mini peanut butter cup and place on the cookie to create a turkey body.

2. Add a small amount of chocolate frosting onto the back of each candy eye and place on the turkey body.

3. To create turkey feathers, take one color at a time and put a little bit of frosting on the back of your candies. Use a toothpick to help line up candies. I used a combination of yellow, red and orange M&M candies and mini Reese's Pieces.

4. Finally, melt your red candy melts in a microwavable safe dish in 20 second increments stirring every 20 seconds, just until melted. (This takes approximately 1 minute but microwaves will vary.)

5. Let the chocolate cool 2-3 minutes and scoop into the sandwich baggie. Snip the corner with a pair of scissors and give each turkey a mouth.

6. Store cookies in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

Recipe Notes

You can substitute red cookie icing in place of the red candy melts and Mini M&M's in place of the mini Reese's Pieces.

Exact number of cookies will depend upon what recipe is used and sugar cookie size. This recipe was tested using the Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix which generates 22 to 24 sugar cookies)

Aren’t these some cute turkeys? I’ve seen other little turkeys made with candy corn feathers but I prefer the flavor combination of the chocolate and peanut butter instead. If you want to completely skip the sugar cookies, you could use this same decorating technique to make Oreo turkeys or turkeys with nutter butters.

That is all there is to making these Turkey cookies with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cookies! If you are looking for more easy Thanksgiving desserts, try my pumpkin pudding which can be made in just 5 minutes or for more cookie bliss, try a Thanksgiving cookie salad.  For another recipe featuring peanut butter cups, try this peanut butter dip which can pull double duty as a dessert or an appetizer for Thanksgiving!