DIY Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes

These Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes are the perfect dessert for the kids! Place them on your Thanksgiving kids table or let the children make them as an activity. They’re adorable and delicious.

Thanksgiving Treats for Kids

Add a special treat for the children at Thanksgiving with these diy turkey cupcakes. These make a whimsical addition to your children’s tablescape 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 celebration 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 – 12!

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

These adorable Thanksgiving cupcakes would look right at home on this colorful Thanksgiving tablescape too.

Thanksgiving Activity for Kids

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

You can make the fruit strip tail feathers a day or two ahead. 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.

HOSTESS TIP: For best results use “Fruit by the Foot” to make the turkey feathers.

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 Thanksgiving treats, check out these easy Thanksgiving turkey cookies.

How to Make Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes

• 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

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

Lay a toothpick down along the back of the fruit with enough extended at the bottom to place into cupcake later.

Place another thin strip of fruit over the toothpick and press it so it adheres and holds the toothpick securely.

Continue until you have 5 “feathers” per cupcake.

Cut tiny triangles from a red fruit strip, to be used as the waddle.

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.

Push cookie into center of cupcake.

Attach fruit strip “feathers” by inserting toothpick into cupcake. Display until ready to eat.