Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies with Royal Icing Decorations

Name: Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 150 min
Yield: 16
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar; 1 cup butter (softened); 1 tsp vanilla; 1/2 tsp almond extract; 1 large egg; 2 1/2 cups flour; 1 tsp baking soda; 1 tsp cream of tartar; 1 cup powdered sugar; 1 tsp almond extract; 1 tbsp melted butter; milk; brown gel food coloring; 5 Tablespoons Meringue Powder; 1/3 cup water; 4 cups powdered sugar; Juice from 1 lemon; Gel food coloring (4-5 colors of your choice for the feathers, beak, and waddle)

November 18, 2013 by Evelyn 30 Comments

This is a Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies recipe with homemade royal icing decorations. These turkey sugar cookies are coated with powdered sugar icing and decorated for some cute turkey cookies.

royal icing decorations, Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

A big treat this morning. My daughter recently had fun making Thanksgiving turkey cookies with her little girls. I asked her to share her super cute recipe with everyone. And she happily obliged so here’s Kristi!

Hi all! I am Kristi, Evelyn’s oldest daughter. I was recently chatting with Mom about some turkey sugar cookies I make, and I was so excited about them. Now I’m happy to volunteer to write this guest post and share this easy turkey cookies recipe with homemade royal icing decorations.

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These are Thanksgiving Holiday Turkey Sugar Cookies my daughters and I made last weekend and we had a lot of fun making them. They turned out so cute and I was really excited to share this turkey cookies recipe on Mom’s blog. The best part is that it took a while to make them and it was that much more quality time I was able to spend with my daughters.

Note: Traditionally, Royal Icing is made with Egg Whites. However, I have small children and it is not recommended that children (or pregnant women for you that this applies to) eat uncooked or undercooked eggs. Therefore, I have provided this royal icing decorations recipe instead. It worked beautifully and tasted great.

How to make Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies:

Scroll down for the printable recipe

For this turkey cookies recipe you will need:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 large egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

Beat together the powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, almond extract, and egg, until smooth and creamy. Mix in remaining ingredients using the paddle attachment of the mixer.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Roll dough in portions to about 1/8- 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a large circle cookie cutter (approximately 3 ½ inches in diameter).
Bake on a cookie sheet lined with non-stick foil or a baking mat for approximately 7 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes then move the cookies to a cooling rack.

For the powdered sugar icing

Note: I use almond extract instead of the traditional vanilla for 2 reasons. First, I have found that the flavor is much better. Second, vanilla darkens my white icing, making it look brown and dirty. Since the almond extract is clear, I don’t have that problem. This was irrelevant for this project, but I still prefer the flavor of the almond extract

1 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp almond extract
1 tbsp melted butter
milk
brown gel food coloring

In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar, vanilla, and melted butter. Stir well.

Then add milk, 1 tsp at a time until the frosting is of desired consistency to frost cookies.

Finally, color with brown gel food color, mixed to your desired color of turkey.

How to make Royal Icing Decorations:

Note: Traditionally, Royal Icing is made with Egg Whites. However, if you have small children, it is not recommended that children (or pregnant women for you that this applies to) eat uncooked or undercooked eggs. Therefore, it’s a good idea to use this recipe instead. It worked beautifully and tasted great

Ingredients:

5 Tablespoons of Meringue Powder
1/3 cup water
4 cups powdered sugar
Juice from 1 lemon
Gel food coloring (4-5 colors of your choice for the feathers, beak, and waddle)

Beat meringue powder and water on high for approximately 1-2 minutes, until the mixture, is slightly thickened.
Add the sugar and lemon juice and mix until smooth. You don’t want the icing to thin, so it will not run when you are creating your designs.
This makes for a good amount of icing. I divided the icing into separate bowls, one for each color I was going to be using and mixed in the gel food coloring of the colors I wanted. I then placed each color into a plastic squeeze bottle to allow for easy tracing of the decoration designs.

So, for these royal icing decorations, I used elongated ovals for the feathers and a simple drawing of a beak and waddle to create a template for the icing decorations. I printed these on a small square of card stock, slightly larger than my cookies. I taped a rectangular piece of cardboard to create a “handle” on the back of the template.

I taped a piece of wax paper, just big enough for my design, to another piece of cardboard. Then I slid the template between the wax paper and cardboard and then traced my design, using the desired colors with the squeeze bottles of icing.

Once I was done, I removed the template from under the wax paper and set aside the design to dry. I repeated this as many times as the number of cookies I wanted to make. It is best to let the icing dry at least overnight so that it is firm when you remove it from the wax paper.

Once I had iced the Thanksgiving turkey cookies with the brown powdered sugar icing, I then removed the royal icing decorations from the wax paper and arranged them on these turkey sugar cookies. You want to be very gentle removing these from the wax paper to prevent them from breaking or cracking. Either use a toothpick to gently prod the icing decorations off the wax paper, or place the wax paper on the edge of the counter or table and roll it down over the edge. This will easily dislodge the pieces.

For the eyes on these Thanksgiving turkey cookies, I bought candy eyeballs, and simply arranged them on the cookies with the rest of the royal icing decorations.

If you enjoy these turkey sugar cookies then see these:

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5 from 10 votes