As I’ve mentioned, we’re in the UK for a year, and before we packed up our Austin house to come out here I made a bunch of holiday-themed cookies with my new Nordicware Cookie Cup pan (which I bought of my own accord and have not received any incentives or compensation for) so I’d have things to blog without having to bring all of my cake tools over.
I was pretty rushed during that time so at the last minute I banged out a quick turkey version of the 3D candy filled cookies I’ve been posting about lately. If I’d had more time I would have tried a cookie version of my popular turkey cakes, but I figured it might also be fun to show how you can put together something really basic and fast using cutters.
Note that you should totally customize this to the tools you have on hand, and if you don’t have shaped cutters you can just use a knife to cut the shapes you need. Also, there’s a lot of fondant on this, so if you don’t have a cookie cup or similar sphere pan, wing it (heh) with a cupcake pan. This would be a fun activity to keep the kids busy over Thanksgiving weekend, and they’ll put even more fondant on so you might want to treat it as one of those situations where the fondant really is meant as decoration and not to be fully eaten.
Start with the base cookie directions on the 3D Baseball Caps post and use any candy you like for the filling. Or if you’re sick and twisted like me, you could use the directions on the 3D Choco-Blood Filled Eyeball Cookies post to fill your turkeys with fake blood and then make them scream as you bite them. Muahahahaha.
Ahem.
Anyway, once you’ve got your shaped and sealed cookies ready, brush some diluted corn syrup over the cookie to make it slightly sticky and proceed as follows:
Roll out some red fondant. Using a small leaf cutter (especially if you have one that’s plunger-style with embossing, like this PME rose leaf cutter) or teardrop shape, cut a bunch of “feathers” and arrange them from the bottom sides up as shown in the photo, finishing with a centered one on top. The feathers should overlap enough to hide the cookie, but leave the very bottom of the curve uncovered.
Roll out orange fondant and use the same cutter to make more “feathers”. Arrange them as shown, more or less with the points in between the points of the red feathers, and covering a bit more of that bottom curve. Repeat with yellow, but this time place the first one so it covers up any remaining cookie on the bottom edge, then fan out the rest from the centre. No more cookie should be visible after this point.
Roll out some brown or chocolate fondant for the head and body. A small music note cutter upside down makes an excellent head shape, or else cut a similar shape by hand.
Use an oval or circle cutter with the brown/chocolate fondant for the body.
Roll two elongated teardrop shapes in the brown/chocolate fondant. Bend the tips back as shown to make wings.
Roll two more elongated tear drops, this time in orange. Use a knife to cut two toes, then use the back of the knife to make little indentations up the leg as shown.
Affix the legs and wings on as shown (or however you want, play around and make your turkeys have different poses!). Cut or shape a small yellow oval and cut one side of it as a beak and put it in place. Put a little red snood over the beak. Make or cut a white circle for the eye with a smaller black circle on top (or use a mini chocolate chip). Cut or shape a red comb for the top of the head. Mine kind of looks like a freaky beret. Oo la la, it’s turkey time!
There you have it: super easy and once you’ve got the base cookies made, it’s super fast with cutters.
Of course if you’re looking to make something fancier, check out my ebook on Cute and Easy Turkey Cakes. Those are great for school/church bake sales, or as a family activity.
Happy Thanksgiving!
