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Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

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By Pillsbury Kitchens
Updated Jun 25, 2024
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Did you ever wonder why Christmas is the holiday to bake and enjoy festive cookies? At Pillsbury, we think Thanksgiving deserves yummy, cute cookies, too! If you’re new to cookie decorating, you might assume these whimsical, on-theme treats are better suited to advanced bakers. But you’d be wrong, because these little turkeys are as beginner friendly as it gets. Just slice and bake a roll of our famous sugar cookie dough, then decorate with frosting and candy to create the sweetest turkeys around. With this easy recipe, you can whip up adorable sugar cookie turkeys for a little family fun time, to bring to a seasonal gathering or to enjoy at Thanksgiving.

Start the Thanksgiving festivities early by enjoying these sweet treats during the week as you anticipate the big day. Or, while you’re busy preparing the big feast, let your kids decorate these cuties and spend some time in the kitchen together where everyone is participating in the preparations!

You can bake and freeze the undecorated cookies in advance, if you like. Just follow our tips below. As you decorate the cookies, center yourself for the holiday meal by practicing gratitude. Can you think of something you’re grateful for, for each of the turkey “feathers”?

Display your attractive sweets as edible Thanksgiving table décor. Use them as the centerpiece or as a decoration for each place setting. These charmers are guaranteed to take first prize as the cutest turkeys on the table! And what better way to express gratitude than to make a cookie for each person sharing the meal with you?

There’s zero stress to bake these cookies, with Pillsbury sugar cookie dough. Get to the fun of decorating these cookies faster! With just 5 simple adorning ingredients, the decorating requires only your creativity, making it fun for any one at any age to decorate a turkey or two. It’s not perfection you’re striving for after all, but a yummy way to spend quality time together creating something special! These are the unforgettable moments that make fond memories. These Thanksgiving cookies might just become a regular tradition!

How to Make Turkey Decorated Cookies

These cute turkey sugar cookies look like they’d take all day to make but are really easy and quick to make with round sugar cookie dough. No special cookie cutters required for these turkey shaped cookies It’s all in the decoration! If you don’t have these exact decors , feel free to use what you have on hand or can easily find at the store. Use this recipe as a fun guide, to create your own turkey cookies. Here are the basic steps for making these adorable sweets. Use the recipe for all the detailed instructions:

Bake and Cool Cookies

Using Pillsbury sugar cookie dough make and cool the cookies as directed on the package.

Creating Feather Fun

Using ready-to-spread chocolate frosting as the “glue”, attach candy corn to the cookies to create the turkey feathers.

Simple Eyes, Beaks and Feet

Create the easy details of the turkeys using a tube of orange decorating icing, M&M's® Minis™ chocolate candies, and a tube of black decorating gel. “Glue” on the candies, using the orange icing for the eyes. Draw the simple “v” beaks and feet with the orange icing, too. Then add a tiny drop of the black gel for the centers of the eyes.

How to Store Turkey Cookies

Wondering how to fit these decorated Thanksgiving cookies into your busy plans? Use our tips to get a jump on making them or how to store them to enjoy another day:

Storing Undecorated or Decorated Cookies: Undecorated cookies: Store cookies at room temperature in resealable food-storage plastic bag or tightly covered containers for up to 3 days. Decorated cookies: Store cookies in a single layer (to protect your decorations) in tightly covered containers at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Freezing Baked Cookies: Get a head start on making these cookies by baking and cooling them when you have some extra time. Place the cooled cookies in a resealable freezer food-storage bag and store in the freezer for up to 1 month. To thaw, remove cookies from bag onto a plate or tray. They will be thawed and ready to decorate in about the time it takes you to gather the candy and icings!

Freezing Decorated Cookies: We wouldn’t recommend freezing the decorated cookies as the candies can get tough when frozen and fall off the cookies when the icings are frozen.

More About This Recipe

  • When it comes to Thanksgiving desserts, a lot of people think of pie—but we’re here to make the case for Thanksgiving cookies. Just slice and bake a roll of our famous sugar cookie dough, then decorate with frosting and candy. And these cute little turkey cookies don’t just taste great, they also pull double duty as décor (take that, hand turkeys!). Make a batch for a festive themed addition to your Thanksgiving table.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if my Decorations Aren’t Sticking?

Be sure your cookies are completely thawed (if frozen) before decorating. Cold cookies can make it more difficult for the candies to stick to the frosting.

If your candies aren’t sticking to the cookies, all you need is a little more frosting or icing “glue”.

Feathers: See the image for a guideline for how much chocolate frosting to squeeze onto the cookies for the candy corn feathers. You’ll want a thick band so the back of each piece of candy is almost covered with frosting when pressed onto the cookie.

Eyes: If your eyes aren’t sticking, simply squeeze a larger dot of the orange frosting onto the cookies and reapply the candies.

How Can I Make These Sweeter?

Sugar cookies are sweet as is, and adding candies for decors makes them even sweeter. But if you like your cookies super sweet (and who could blame you!), you can frost the entire top of the cookies first. This will not only make them a bit sweeter, but less precise for piping the frosting for adding the turkey decorations. You can use any ready-to-spread frosting you like (tint white frosting with brown gel or paste food color, to make the frosting tan or brown) or make your own icing, with powdered sugar and a few drops of water.

Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

  • Prep Time 20 min
  • Total 60 min
  • Ingredients 6
  • Servings 16
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Step 
    1
    Bake cookies as directed on roll or package. Cool completely, about 15 minutes.
  • Step 
    2
    Spoon chocolate frosting into 1-quart freezer storage bag; seal bag. Cut off tiny bottom corner of bag.
  • Step 
    3
    On each cookie, pipe frosting on outer edge of half of cookie. Arrange candy corn over frosting for feathers.
  • Step 
    4
    Use orange icing to attach candies to turkey face for eyes.
  • Step 
    5
    Pipe orange icing onto each cookie to resemble beak and feet.
  • Step 
    6
    Pipe black gel on candies for centers of eyes.

Nutrition

300 Calories
8g Total Fat
1g Protein
55g Total Carbohydrate
39g Sugars

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 Cookie (cookie and frosting only)
Calories
300
Calories from Fat
70
Total Fat
8g
12%
Saturated Fat
2 1/2g
13%
Trans Fat
0g
Cholesterol
5mg
2%
Sodium
190mg
8%
Potassium
30mg
1%
Total Carbohydrate
55g
18%
Dietary Fiber
0g
0%
Sugars
39g
Protein
1g
% Daily Value*:
Vitamin A
0%
0%
Vitamin C
0%
0%
Calcium
0%
0%
Iron
0%
0%
Exchanges:
1/2 Starch; 0 Fruit; 3 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Skim Milk; 0 Low-Fat Milk; 0 Milk; 0 Vegetable; 0 Very Lean Meat; 0 Lean Meat; 0 High-Fat Meat; 1 1/2 Fat;
Carbohydrate Choice
3 1/2
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

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