Turkey Cupcakes

We are almost down to a week before Thanksgiving!

Do you have your menu planned?

If you haven't decided on what cookies or cupcakes you are making, these Turkey Cupcakes were made using some of the cookies from the Fall Harvest Cookies that I had put aside a couple days ago! Already having the cookies made, these were a snap to put together!

Here is what you need for the cupcake:

Cupcakes (I used a vanilla cupcake recipe + 1tsp of cinnamon + 1tsp pumpkin pie spice)

Ready Made Icing (I mixed vanilla decorator icing and chocolate icing to get a lighter brown)

Candy Corn

Red Fondant (just a little for the snood (flap of skin over turkeys nose))

Leaf Shaped Cookies

Eyes

  

Now, of course you could drive to the store to go buy eyes for your turkey or maybe you are lucky enough to already have some on hand. If not, here is a quick and easy way to make eyes, and you will never have to buy them again! You will need: a pinch of white fondant or gum paste, a size 12 tip, a black Foodwriter, and a bit of cornstarch or powdered sugar.

Roll out the white fondant to 1/8 inch. Dip the tip of a size 12 tip into cornstarch or powdered sugar to prevent sticking and just cute out as many eyes as you want. Draw on the pupil with a black Foodwriter. Make extras, let them dry and store them in a zipper bag for future use!

To assemble the cupcake: Spread brown frosting over the top of each cupcake. Put the excess frosting in either a piping bag fitted with tip 12, a zipper bag fitted with tip 12 (yes, you can screw the coupler and tip right on!) or a zipper bag with the corner cut off. Squeeze the frosting on for the head keeping the tip buried until you have made a mound of frosting the size for a head. Squeeze 3 more mounds for the feathers (cookies).

Cut a piece of candy corn in half to make the beak, roll a bit of red fondant in your hand to make the snood. (I always thought it was called a wattle, but the wattle is actually under the beak. The snood is the flap of skin over the beak. Thank you, Google!) Add the eyes and 3 cookies for feathers.

I also used a different shape leaf cookie on some of the turkey cupcakes! I was worried that the feathers would fall over, but the thickness of the frosting kept all the feathers upright without a problem!

If you don't have time to make the Fall Harvest Cookies, search your cookie aisle in the grocery store, I am sure there is something suitable, like the ginger cookies that I used in making the "Hello, Cupcake!" Larry the Turkey Cupcakes! Just improvise if needed and most of all...have fun!

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These Cupcakes are Shared at:

Hoosier Homemade: Cupcake Tuesday

Bacon Time: Anything Goes Linky

This Chick Cooks: This Chick Cooked

Something Swanky: Sweet Treats Thursday

Rae Gun Ramblings: What We Made and Wore Wednesdays

Talking Dollars and Cents: Muffin (&Cupcake) Monday

These Cupcakes are Featued at:

Something Swanky: Sweet Treats Thursday

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Turkey Cake Pops

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble 'em up!

November is here and that means Thanksgiving time!

I have to admit, I am really not that into the traditional Thanksgiving meal, you know the turkey, all the fixings, we don't even like turkey! I don't even like to cook! Baking is my thing and we definitely have our fill of desserts for Thanksgiving! Right now, we are still working on finishing up that huge Black, Red, & White Birthday Cake I made for my daughter's birthday. That is where these turkeys came from! Yep, I squished up some of the chocolate cake, frosting and all, which just happened to be the perfect amount of cake and frosting! You could say these are recycled...or upcycled!

I may not like to eat real turkey for Thanksgiving, but these little guys sure are cuties, aren't they?! Unlike a real turkey...these are fun to make and gobble up too!

Other than making a basic cake pop covered in chocolate, all you need for these are pretzels for the legs, candy corn for beak and feathers, mini M&M's for the eyes, a candy writer to draw the pupils on the eyes, and red fondant for the snood (the flap of skin that hangs over the turkey's beak). I made the basic cake pops first, before decorating. Once they were ready, I lined up 5 candy corn for the feathers, applied a little melted chocolate and laid the cake pop right on top of the feathers to set. While the cake pop was laying on top of the feathers, I applied the eyes, beak, and legs with a drop of the melted chocolate, holding a few seconds until set. I made these cake pops using things I already had in the kitchen, so just improvise if you are missing something!

Here are the little guys playing in the leaves!

 

Here are some other great Turkey Cake Pops that you may find inspiration from as well, each made a little differently with different supplies, all totally adorable and gobble-able:

Bakerella: You'll Want to Gobble These Right Up!

Miss Candiquik: Gobble, Gobble! Turkey Pops!

365 Days of Cake Pops: Turkey Cake Pops Tutorial

 

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    These Turkeys are Gobbling Over at:

Bacon Time: Anything Goes Linky
Sweet as Sugar Cookies: Sweets for a Saturday
A Well-Seasoned Life: Sweet Indulgences Sunday
The Southern Institute: Creative Me Monday
Life in the Motherhood: The Harvest Party
Sweetology: Tea Party Tuesday
Chef In Training: Tuesday Talent Show

Rook No 17: A Little Birdie Told Me

The Kurtz Corner: Tuesday Tutorials

Crazy for Crust: Crazy Sweet Tuesday

Crumbs and Chaos: Seasonal Inspiration

 

These Turkeys are Featured at:

Bacon Time: Fantastic Thanksgiving Features

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Flashback to Thanksgiving 2010!

It's Flashback Friday!

This is a once in awhile segment that I created to show you some of my past adventures before I began blogging!

I can't believe November is already here! To kick of the month, I am sharing the desserts I made last November!

These cupcakes were created with just a box of Spice Cake Mix and a can of Pumpkin. The frosting is canned cream cheese frosting. The leaves my daughter created with homemade fondant!

I believe this was our very first time using any type of fondant. Here is a close up to show the marbled effect!

This is just a regular pumpkin pie from a store bought crust and following the directions on the can of pumpkin. I wanted to decorate it up a bit, so I used the 2nd crust to cut out leaf shapes. I then dipped the shapes into sugar and applies the outside ring of leaves before baking. I applied a few additional leaves in the last few minutes of baking.

 Even a simple pie can taste better when it is a little more decorative! Even though I had a long dry spell without baking cakes or cupcakes. I did make Pumpkin Pies on occasion during that time and had a few disasters with that too. However, everyone was delighted to see the Pumpkin Pie decorated like this!

Quite a few sweets served at Thanksgiving Dinner last year!

The small plate of leaf shaped cookies to the left are Gingerbread Cookies.

These were the presliced cookies that are in the refrigerator sections at the grocery store. I sandwiched 2 together with chocolate frosting on the inside and rolled in chocolate jimmies.

These Cupcakes I made from the "Hello, Cupcake!" Book. Again using a Spice cake with a can of Pumpkin, needless to say that combo with chocolate wasn't my favorite.

Here's a close up of my Turkey Cupcakes!

This had to have been my favorite dessert from last Thanksgiving.

I saw this made on the Rachel Ray Show, it is called Anne Thorton's Gingersnap Pumpkin Pie. The crust is made with crushed gingersnaps.

I served each slice topped with a Gingerbread Man cookie!

These next 2 were made after Thanksgiving, but fit here as well.

These are Pumpkin Pies Bites inspired by Bakerella. They were made in mini cupcake pan. I used homemade pie crust dough cut with a Pumpkin Shaped Cookie Cutter. I was having the hardest time getting the homemade crust into the mini cupcake pans. That is when my teenage daughter came to the rescue and did the job for me. The pan we had only holds 12, so we used the rest to make the dessert below.

This was basically just a square pumpkin pie with only crust on the bottom, equalling less calories and a lot less work than the Pumpkin Pie Bites!

Those are a few ideas for the upcoming month! The Gingersnap Pumpkin Pie is the best, definitely worth trying, the recipe is linked above.  

As for this year, I have no clue what I am going to bake up for Thanksgiving! Stay tuned to find out!



"Hello, Cupcake!" and "What's New Cupcake?" Cupcakes!

It's Flashback Friday!
This is a weekly segment that I post to show you some of my past adventures...

(As time has passed I have found a couple more pictures that I forgot to add- Halloween project added 3/20/2011, Gingerbread Boys project added 4/17/2011)

Last year when I saw the "The What's New Cupcake!" book by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, I was immediately interested and also found that they had a previous book, "Hello, Cupcake!" These were cute, different cupcakes, that are more like artwork than food. These books are a must have, even if you don't bake, they are just fun to look at! If you do like to bake, these are certain to catch the eye of anyone that eats them! Anyways, I have re-created a few of there cupcake designs which are pictured below! I have changed each design slightly to fit my need. I hope you enjoy!

I made these Dog Cupcakes on 9/2/2010 for my Maltese Rex's birthday (of course he didn't eat them!)
I used funfetti cake mix and buttercream icing. For the nose and tongue I made some homemade fondant and colored it and molded the eyes, nose, and tongue instead of using the suggested candies.

"The House That Boo Built"...I made this for Halloween 2010. The trees were made from dark melting chocolate...yum! I did have to use a few toothpicks to hold up the trees. This was pretty fun to make!

I made these Turkey Cupcakes for Thanksgiving 2010!

It is a pumpkin cupcake with chocolate frosting. I used a box Spice Cake mix with a can of plain organic pumpkin, no eggs, no oil, no water, just the mix and a can of pumpkin. Yes it is super thick batter, but it works!

As far as the decoration, I had read many reviews about these falling apart, so I wanted to take extra care and time in making these. I started on Thanksgiving Eve. For the eyes I used that fabulous Wilton Cooking Icing, just dropped on a drop and put a sprinkle for the iris. The red waddle on the beak was made with Wilton Cookie Icing too! I let the mini cupcake face dry sitting normal overnight before assembling. I collected all the different colors of candy corn for the feathers around Halloween. The cookies were Anna's Thin Ginger cookies which I used *once again* Wilton Cookie Icing to glue on the candy corn the night before I needed them. When actually assembling the cupcakes o Thanksgiving Day, I put a toothpick into the face cupcake to stick it into the body cupcake. I also used a whole marshmallow to hold that cookie up, along with a couple strategically placed toothpicks.

I made these Cupcakes in Martini Cups for New Year's Eve 2010!

The cupcakes were not baked in the plastic martini cups. While the cupcakes were actually baking, I used corn syrup on the rim of each cup and dipped each in a different color sanding sugar to go with my color scheme. This dryed totally, pretty quickly. It took 2 containers of storebought frosting, melted in the microwave and then colored swirled in the cup until dried before placing the unwrapped cupcake into the martini cup to stop up the hole and then finished filling with the melted frosting. This is where an extra set of hands comes in handy to swirl that first spoonful of frosting in the cup until it is no longer trying to run down the cup. I used Jelly Belly's for these trying to coordinate colors with the frosting and the candies. For embellishments I used paper umbrellas I already hand on hand and gummy candies that I cut a small slit in and slid on the edge of the cup.

I made these "Gingerbread Boys" cupcakes in January this year. They were from the "Hello, Cupcake!" book. They were pretty easy just dipping the cupcakes into melted canned chocolate frosting, letting that dry, a few gum drops, and then outline. I used Wilton Cookie Icing to pipe on the outline. I was in a bit of a rush so didn't get the outline piped as well as I had hoped.

So far these are the only of the "Hello,Cupcake"/"What's New Cupcake" designs that I have re-created, but there are definately more in the plans!

A few months back I looked at a blog (before I knew about blogging really) where a girl works her way though this book...does anyone know the name of this blog? I would like to find it again.

"Hello,Cupcake"/"What's New Cupcake" has a monthly email newsletter on there blog to sign up for too with a new idea delivered right into your email box every month!