Gobble Gobble Gobble!

These are my newest “favorite” cookie. Truly, I couldn’t be more happy with how these gobbler dudes turned out! I’m absolutely in love with them, and they are some of the easiest cookies to make, too!

To begin, you’ll need the following supplies:

• seashell and #8 baked cookies
• brown flood icing
• red, orange, yellow & green piping icing
• tiny bit of white & black icing
• #1 tips
• #65 leaf tips

I made these for our church’s annual “Turkey Bowl” to raise money for missions. I took liberty with the “two cookies per bag” rule, and I decided to make a ‘twofer’ in one turkey! I window-shopped my cookie cutter collection & came up with a seashell cutter and a #8 to make the perfect dimensional turkey. To make sure the idea would pan out, I used my boys’ crayons to first draw up a little sketch:

Now, in full disclosure, I’m gonna tell you a secret: I rarely mix icing colors from fresh white. There are so many cookie projects going on at all times that I take bits & pieces of colors that are similar to what I’m needing, and I just tweak from there – especially in the case of dark colors like a nice, medium brown.

For example, I used my leftover bits of baby pink, caramel, dark chocolate & medium brown icing to make the color I used to flood my turkey bodies. The medium brown is really what I was going for, but I only had about 2 teaspoons left of that shade, and I needed a lot more.

After mixing all of the above together, I had a beautiful, perfect true “medium brown” shade of icing. See?

In these cookies, I wanted a no-fuss approach, so I didn’t bother with piping an outline for the turkey bodies first. Instead, I just put the brown flood icing directly into a decorating bag & snipped the tip just a tiny bit. I flooded the #8 cookies nice & full, to make sure that the icing wouldn’t settle into the depressions for the centers of the 8 shape.

Once all the turkey bodies are flooded, set them aside to dry for a bit while you work on the feathers. I like to dry my cookies in front of a fan because it is SO HUMID here in southern East Texas. It makes quick work of the whole process, believe me. 🙂

Using the seashell shape, decide which little “hump” sections you want to be each color. I chose to start with the yellow, and I fitted my piping bag with a #65 leaf tip. The leaf tip is SO forgiving, and you really just can’t go wrong. (That’s why I love it so much for the feathers, heehee!)

Work through all of your feather colors in the same manner. I chose to leave the red for last because I used it for both the outer feathers & the center feathers. You get a rhythm going, and your cookies start to look like pretty little rainbows, almost…

By the time all of the feather cookies are complete, your little turkey body cookies will have developed a nice “crust” & be stable enough to add to them. See the pretty sheen the fan gives the icing while drying?

To build the turkey together, I used the leftover piping icing I had (in this case, green). I squirted a blob (yes, the technical term) on the back of each turkey body, making sure that it was plenty to help “glue” the two cookies together, yet not so much that it would squish out & be visible.

Gently apply the body cookie to the feather cookie. Give it a nice tap of pressure to adhere the icing, but again – don’t press too hard!

Next, it’s time to add the details. You can get away without adding the tiny turkey feet, but… why would you want to?! They are so darn adorable! I switched the leaf tip from my orange piping bag & gave it a #1 tip, and then I piped scrawny little legs from just beneath the turkey body cookie.

Lastly, add the face. I broke it down into features, in case that helps to see the process:

Let the cookies dry fully for another 4 hours or so (or overnight), and then they are ready to gobble! 🙂

And if you’re making 98 of these double-decker turkey cookies, this is what your dining room table might look like, ha!

If you decide to make these this year, please do let me know! I’d love to see your finished turkeys! 🙂