The following is a guest post from Abbey Land, wife of our friend Jeff Land! She came up with these super cute turkey cupcakes and we thought you might like to see them before the Thanksgiving holiday hits!
Recently I volunteered to make turkey cupcakes with my son’s class of 21 Kindergartners. I came armed with my four-year-old son as my helper, and there was a substitute in the room that day. I prepared my supplies to create the cupcakes according to the abilities of a kindergartner. All the kids had fun making this snack and were so proud of the finished product. I’ve got photos of 21 turkey cupcakes on my phone to prove it! If I survived my experience, then anyone can make this fun snack!
I baked chocolate cupcakes, but any flavor will do. You can purchase cupcakes if you’re in a hurry or don\’t want to turn your oven on. I\’d advise scraping off the icing to create a smaller base on which to build your cupcake. I used orange icing, because it’s what I had. Chocolate icing would be the most realistic looking for a turkey. Reserve a small amount of icing, and place it in a plastic sealed sandwich bag, and cut a small corner off the bag. You\’ll need this later.
On the table when the kids walked in were pretzel rods and precut turkey feathers made of out of fruit roll-ups. I folded fruit roll-ups in half with the paper side back-to-back and cut out the shape of the turkey feather. You can use several different color roll-ups or all the same. Be careful if you prepare them ahead of time, and put waxed paper in between layers. Otherwise, the fruit roll-ups will stick together and make a big mess. Most roll-ups have some type of image printed on them, but these don\’t really show up when creating the feathers. I assisted the kindergartens in removing the paper of one feather then placing the pretzel rod on top, leaving space at the bottom to put the rod in the cupcake. Then, remove the paper from the other feather and place it on top of the pretzel rod and press down. Repeat with several rods, and you\’ll have several feathers ready for the cupcake.
Remember that extra icing? Use it to squirt two small dots of icing on one end of a peanut-shaped sandwich cookie and place 2 mini chocolate chips on the cookie to create two eyes for the turkey. If you have red fruit roll-up leftover, cut a small piece to create the gobble, or wattle, and attach it to the turkey’s face using a bit of icing.
Now, assemble the turkey. Place the cookie in first, then position the pretzels rod behind the cookie to create fanned out feathers. Here’s the best part-enjoy the turkey!
This is a great project for almost any age kids (or adults). If you decide you want to make these, here’s a quick shopping list:
cake mix (plus supplies to make cupcakes)
pretzel rods
fruit roll ups
icing
peanut-shaped sandwich cookies
mini chocolate chips (regular chocolate chips will work, they will just be a little ill-proportioned!)
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