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Home > Blogs > Adventures in Motherhood > Archives > 2010 > November > 24 > Entry
Last-minute Turkey Day cookies, super-fun centerpiece
I am always up for a culinary challenge. I’m just not always willing to start from scratch.
When my youngest child, who turns 5 on Thanksgiving Day, told me he wanted to make cookies that looked like turkeys for his classroom birthday treat, I headed straight for Google.
The first images that popped up when I searched for — get ready — “turkey cookies” were not even cookies. But what I saw immediately sent me scrambling to the kitchen to scrounge up supplies for a cute-as-a-button centerpiece.
Five minutes later, I was sitting at the dining room table and giggling as I poked clove “eyes” into a radish “head” and threaded dried cranberries and marshmallow “feathers” onto skewers.
The instructions I found online suggested a green olive for a head (with the pimento pushed out for the beak), but I thought my kids would blanch at that.
There are so many options: A large grape or a cherry tomato for a head. A piece of candy corn for the beak; fruit loops for the feathers; a pomegranate for the body. Use your — or your kid’s — imagination!
I took my “original” to a party and presented it as a hostess gift. She loved it, and immediately gave it center stage on her table.
Later, son and I made more little gobblers to flank our own cornucopia. Toothpicks and an apple, elevated to legend status.
So we still had the turkey cookie conundrum on our plate. But a few clicks of the mouse brought me to a simple recipe that put a smile on our faces.
Refrigerated sugar cookie dough, tubs of prepared icing, candy corn and white baking chips are all that’s required. But again, use your creativity: Mini M&Ms or Skittles could serve as eyes; gummy shapes or fruit roll-ups could be fashioned into talon toes.
My little helper stirred some food coloring into a dollop of buttercream icing till he was happy with the orange tint for the beaks and feet, and then I loaded it into a plastic baggy and snipped the tip to make a piping bag. A smudge of the chocolate frosting dotted the eyes.
He assembled the eyes and feathers, with a little assistance from his visiting grandma, and I piped on the accoutrement.
The whole baking and decorating process took less than two hours, and the cookies were a big hit with the preschool set. Another keeper for my recipe box!
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