DIY Turkey Cupcakes for Thanksgiving

Add a special treat for the children at Thanksgiving with these DIY turkey cupcakes. These make a whimsical addition as a fall centerpiece on the kids Thanksgiving table or to the holiday dessert table. 

I haven’t had the pleasure of hosting Thanksgiving for young children in quite a while. But when we used to host our Friendsgiving I made these colorful turkey cupcakes for the kids.

One year I made them to place at each child’s place setting. The children were pretty young at the time. And as much as they liked them then, I think they appreciated them even more at around the ages of 9 to 12!

You can be sure that this combination of cupcakes, cookies, and fruit strips will please most children’s picky palate even when desserts from the pie table may not.

Ingredients

• Chocolate frosted cupcakes
• Nutter Butter cookies
• Fruit By The Foot strips – variety pack is best for more color variations
• Mini chocolate chips
• Toothpicks
• Additional frosting or decorator gel
• Kitchen scissors to cut fruit strips

How To Make Them

1. 

   Unroll fruit strips and cut into feather shapes about 3 inches long x 1 inch wide.

2. Lay a toothpick down along the back of the fruit with enough extended at the bottom to place into cupcake later.
3. Place another thin strip of fruit over the toothpick and press it so it adheres and holds the toothpick securely.
4. Continue until you have 5 “feathers” per cupcake.
5. Cut tiny triangles from a red fruit strip, to be used as the waddle.
6. Use a tiny dab of frosting to adhere mini chips to the cookies for eyes. Add another dab to the triangle ‘waddle’ and press onto cookies.
7. Push cookie into center of cupcake and attach fruit strip “feathers” by inserting toothpick into cupcake. Display until ready to eat.

Helpful Tips

This is an easy DIY project to do yourself, or to prepare partially and let the children finish.

I suggest an adult or older child assembles the toothpick feathers ahead of time. You can make them a day or two ahead, and keep them covered tightly with saran wrap or stored in an air tight container. Make sure to keep the wax paper attached until ready to place them into the cupcakes. That way they stay separated and won’t stick to one another.

I bought a box of Fruit By The Foot to make six turkey cupcakes. The long strips are easy to cut and come with 3 color/flavor varieties inside. This gives you lots of color and dimension in the feathers.

These look very cute displayed all together like a flock of turkey, don’t you think?

For more holiday treats, check out these easy turkey cookies and Thanksgiving pilgrim hat cookies.