Today I’m going to show you how to make a fun Thanksgiving craft perfect for both kids and adults! These darling turkeys are made from candy and completely edible! They are a fun activity for holiday parties, family nights, or just for fun. I’m also going to show you how to make a great little pilgrim hat at the end as well.
Ingredients/Supplies needed for candy turkeys:
Double Stuff Oreo Cookies
Candy Corn
Whoppers
Mini peanut butter cups
Chocolate frosting*
Yellow Frosting*
Optional: Red frosting*
Optional: black sprinkles for eyes
*For these kinds of things I love to use the little pre-filled tubes of colored frosting you can buy in the baking aisle. The chocolate is easy to make, and homemade actually works a little better because you can make it stiff. However, for the colored details like yellow and red, these little tubes are great. It doesn’t really matter what they taste like and they last forever (which is both cool and disturbing at the same time.) I’m using store-bought tubes for everything here purely for convenience- works great!
Step 1:
Grab a cookie. You don’t have to put frosting in there, but I like to because it holds in the candy corn a little better. Just give it a little squeeze of chocolate.
Then stuff in your candycorn. If you’re in some sort of candy corn shortage, you can cut off the white tips to use later for your beaks. I think the candy corn sticks in better with the tip so I leave it on. Go ahead and do all of the cookies through this step.
Step 2:
Next, put a dab of frosting on the opposite end of the cookie and secure it to the “base” cookie. It helps to place them next to a wall as they dry so they stay put.
While those are drying, unwrap your peanut butter cups. Take a sharp knife and cut a sliver off one end. (I don’t need to tell you what to do with the sliver, do I?) It helps to gently cut in a sawing motion so you don’t break the PB cup. (Although I wouldn’t have to tell you what to do with a broken one either, would I?) Cut it from the bottom like I show here:
Once those are ready, flip your cookies over, but you may find it’s easy to keep them next to the wall. My frosting was a bit soft, so they needed the extra support.
Place a dab of frosting on the peanut butter cup, and place it on the cookie like so:
Step 3:
Now those little guys will need heads, so glue a whopper on there with frosting as well. I put frosting on the side of the whopper that hits both the cookie and the PB cup. We wouldn’t want a turkey running around with its head cut off, would we??
While they’re still lying there, use a dab of frosting (I use yellow) and glue on the white tip of a candy corn for a beak. Put two yellow dots on for eyes, and for the black spots in the eyes you can use a dab of chocolate frosting, or a mini chocolate chip, or a little sprinkle like I’ve used. A sprinkle is really the perfect size if you have them.
Step 4:
Once the beak is secure, you can flip them over and draw on some little yellow feet. If you have red frosting too (usually comes in a set with the tube of yellow) you can add a little gobble gobble. Or whatever that thing is called. What is it called? I’m too lazy to google. Extra giveaway entry for the first person who can tell me. Okay not really but I’ll think you’re awesome.
And there you go, cute as can be!
These make really cute place card holders too, for either a kid, or adult table! How cute is my little turkey family?
Stick one on each plate and everyone will say “Awwwwwwe….” If you have kids old enough to handle making them, it’s a fun project for them to be in charge of.
They’re also darling combined with pilgrim hats.
Those are just marshmallows dipped in chocolate and placed on a fudge strip cookie. Use yellow frosting to make the buckle. (Pretty much the Thanksgiving version of the Halloween witch hats seen in this post!)
Hope you enjoy these fun little things! Happy Friday!
Questions & Reviews
Such a fun and cute activity! Just as a note- gel frosting does not work at all for the glue. Thanks for sharing!!
From doing these I would suggest using double stuff oreos so the candy corn stay in place easier and aren’t breaking your cookies!
This was great fun. Worked great
thx u just saved me so much work for my english assignment
I am amazed by how well your turkeys turned out. I just tried making them for the first time and my eyes and “gobbles” do not look half as good as yours do. Thanks for the idea and for the instructions. It was a fun project and I look forward to showing off my turkey army tomorrow at Thanksgiving dinner.
I am making them right now! Thank you do much for the adorable idea!
Any suggestions on what to use besides candy corn? I can’t seem to find it anywhere? All the stores went from Halloween to Christmas candy fairly quickly! I like the bright colors of the candy corn but thinking of trying pretzel sticks instead. Want to make these with the kids today to bring for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Happy Turkey day all!
Winco in the bulk section is where I bought mine.
I had a hard time finding candy corn too but we finally found some at Walgreens!
We’re making these for Thanksgiving this year! So excited!!
These are genius and so cute! I’ll be making these with my daughter this year for sure
My peanut allergic son and I just made these. We used Rolos instead of peanut butter cups and they turned out just fine! Thanks for the idea!
Ok, I’m going to try and make these. They are so cute. I love your directions, you make it so easy. And by the way, I do know what to do with those like extra sliver pieces. LOL. Happy Thanksgiving.
I will be making these tonight. 🙂
lol love these we are so making them and btw the little thing on a turkey, its called a waddle
My girls and I just did these, they are soooo cute, and the girls and I had so much fun doing them!! Thank you for sharing!!
Sara! Is there a difference between frosting and icing? And how far in advance can i make these adorable little treats?
Just got done making ours with my 6, 5 and 3 year olds! It was cool. I think next time i will have to use a stiffer chocolate frosting…they are a bit sloppy with my whipped frosting. But oh so cute! Thanks for the ideas! Pilgrim hats are tomorrow afternoons activity.
I just looked at the photo again of the ingredients you used and I used the exact same icing for the eyes. I wonder why mine dripped so much??
Hello, These are so adorable. I just made a bunch for Thanksgiving but want to know what kind of icing you used for the eyes. I used Cake Mate Writing Icing because they came in small tubes and were in yellow and red, which were the colors I needed. The problem with it was that the icing ran down over the face of the turkey rather than staying as a ball of icing for the eyes of the turkey. Just wondering what kind of icing works that stays in place. Thanks.
Oh my goodness! These are adorable! I was having trouble figuring out what to bring to the family gathering, but now I know. Thank you for sharing
Brilliant! I can’t wait to make these. The little red thing is called a waddle I think.
Is there a certain type of frosting you need to buy so that it stiffens up in order to keep the cookies together???????
THESE ARE GREAT!!! MAKING THEM FOR THIS THANKSGIVING IN A COUPLE OF DAYS!! THANKS!!!
Im so making these for thanksgiving on thursday! Thanks so much for the idea! Super Cute!!!!
I don’t know what the “gobble gobbles” are technically called, but my dad always called them dingle berries haha
I loooooveeee these! So precious. I am planning on making them with my first graders tomorrow at our Thanksgiving party! Thanks so much for the sweet idea :)_
I just made these with my almost 4 year old to take to her little friends for a thanksgiving treat. I ended up using a Jr Mint as the head because I hate Whoppers with a passion. 😉 It worked well, especially since the backside of the mint is flat. Thanks for such a fun activity for my daughter and me to do together.
I’m so going to do these with my daughter and son this year. My family always has a huge Thanksgiving dinner and we are sooooooo going to bring these for the fam!
The red gobble thing on the bottom of a turkey’s neck is called a wattle.
These are the cutest Thanksgiving cookies ever. I am so going to make these with my mom this year! Thanks for the idea!
These are adorable! We just finished making them and they turned out so cute. Need a way to store them? They fit perfectly in cupcake tins! Thanks so much. My boy’s class will LOVE them!