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The other day I was home with my girls and 3 of their friends. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I wanted to do a fun holiday craft with them but didn’t know exactly what to do. After glancing at my girl’s Halloween bag full of candy, I had a great idea. I decided to let my kids and their friends do a fun, creative and tasty craft that involved a lot of sugar! I knew that their parents would appreciate this, but I also knew that the kids would have a fun time and that is what was important, so I grabbed the kids and we made some Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies.
Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies are easy to make and use very few ingredients:
- Sugar cookie dough: I normally use ready made sugar cookie dough but you can use your favorite recipe if you want.
- Variety of delicious and colorful candy: I like to use M&M’s or Skittles since they are super colorful or you can use these, along with candy corn.
- White frosting: I use Pillsbury white frosting but any brand like this one should be okay.
- Food coloring: Choose a brand of food coloring with bright colors like Wilton. They are my absolute favorite but any other brand such as this one should be fine. I like to use bright colors since the holidays are fun and festive.
- Flour
After you have mixed the cookie dough, roll the dough out as if you are making cut out cookies, don’t forget to use flour to help with making them not so sticky. Once your kids have washed their hands, have them put one hand onto the rolled out dough and then cut around their hands and fingers. Carefully place the hand shaped cookie onto a greased cookie sheet. Add some sugar cookie dough to the turkey to make a little beak. After each child has traced and had their hand print cut out, bake them as directed but make sure to keep a watchful eye on them so that they do not burn since they might be thinner than a normal sugar cookie.
As the Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies are cooling, separate the white icing into 4 bowls and chose 4 different food colors. I mixed the food coloring into each bowl of icing. Afterward, I placed the candy onto different plates. Once everything was laid out it was time for the kids to decorate their Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies. After the cookies were decorated, the kids wasted no time and gobbled them up!
Ingredients
- Sugar Cookie Dough
- White Icing
- Food Coloring
- Candy Toppings
- Flour
Instructions
- Prepare sugar cookie dough as directed
- Spread dough out onto greased cookie sheet
- Place flour onto child's hand
- Have child place clean hand onto dough
- Press firmly and lift up
- Bake cookie as directed but since the hand print may be thinner than the normal cookie, keep an eye on it so it does not burn
- Separate icing into individual bowls
- Drop food coloring into each bowl and stir
- Decorate cookies with icing and candies
What is your favorite treat to make during the Thanksgiving holiday? If you love this fun project for kids, take a look at this project that is perfect for younger kids.
I never thought to do this last year with my hand sugar cookies, love it! I now want to find my hand sugar cookies posts … which would be great addition to your post here! Creative!
I love it! I think poor old Thanksgiving gets overlooked/ignored… it’s Halloween and then Christmas. So I love seeing Thanksgiving themed treats and crafts.
I will have to try this with the nieces and nephews this Thanksgiving! Great idea!
What a fun idea! My kids will love it if we do this together!
Neat idea. Fantastic and yummy project.
those cookies look so yummy! Great job mom. I bet the kids had a blast decorating and eating those.
What fun! My son would love to make and eat these!!
Such cute cookies. That would be fun to make with my kids.
My 7 year old and I love baking and I think that would be a great idea for thanksgiving fun. I have a trip to u of m before thanksgiving but I bet we can do this before we leave would be a fun treat to take with us thanks for sharing.
The best part is how much kids get to do to help. It’s super duper cute! Love all the different colored finger feathers. 🙂
That looks like a lot of fun. We dont make a lot of cookies around here, but we might just have to make these!
This is such a creative idea! I have made plenty of turkey crafts using handprints, but I’ve never thought to make cookies this way. I love the way they turned out.
Those are too cute. I bet they are crazy fun to make, too!
The hand Turkeys are so cute. Davey would love making these. What a great idea to use a hand to make the turkey cookie. I always use a hand to make a turkey on paper – but I never would of thought to do that for a cookie!
This is just the kind of thing my kids love to do. I love that it’s the hand turkeys everyone’s made on paper at some point. Fun!
My kids would love this! Definitely trying this during the week off at Thanksgiving. Thanks for sharing!
Those are so cute, and look like such fun to make! I think they’re a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen on Thanksgiving.
I love this idea! What a fun way for each kid to make a unique cookie for the holiday!
These are so cute. I can not wait to make these with my friends little ones.
Oh good. When I read “turkey cookies” I immediately thought of some kind of flat turkey meatball LOL These are much better! And so much fun for the kids!
We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in Spain, but these cookies look really fun to make and decorate. I’m sure my daughter would love to bake and eat some cookies, so maybe we eill give it a try!
Hah! At first I thought you were making cookies out of turkey!! This is cute and fun!
I’d like to give these a try! Can’t believe it is almost Turkey DAY!
What a cute & personalized idea for the kids. Definitely a fun activity for all!
These are so cute. I’d love to do this for the kids on Thanksgiving. Maybe I’ll have my kids make the cookies beforehand.
How adorable! What a great idea! My kids would love to do this!
I never would have thought to make hand print cookies. They look awesome and I can see kids really getting into making them.
What a cute cute idea! I am putting this on our list for the daycare Thanksgiving activities.
Okay, seriously, I first read it as though you were making cookies out of turkey!! Thank goodness it’s Friday! Those cookies are adorable – and glad they’re not made out of turkey!
That’s so cute! I remember drawing a turkey like that as a child but never thought to bake that way. Great idea.
What a creative and festive way to interact with your kids! You’re always to creative and it looks like everyone is having a ball! I already pinned this to do later with my kids!
OMG, what a fun time my son and myself would have making these cookies!!! These are going to be a must try for the season!
What a fun little idea for kids! This would be a great activity to do after eating Thanksgiving dinner to keep them busy.
Those are adorable! I don’t have children at home anymore, but I’m going to have my DIL look at these so she can make some with the girls.
Well those look fun…Cannot believe Thanksgiving is so close…I’m not ready yet!
This looks like it is really fun to do. I think my kids would love to do this. I love how your cookies turned out.
This is such a fun and cute idea Aimee! Pinning for later.
So creative! Love it. My little man is 15-months old so he can’t participate yet but my nephew and niece who are 6 and 8 would love it.
Fun! I am stashing this idea away for next year with Sweet E!
I have no baking skills, but I might convince the hubs to do these with our daughter this weekend!
Oh my gosh! These are so cute! Love them!
So Fun!! I am definitely ‘PINning’ this for later 😀
Adorable! Wonderful craft to do with your children!
These are super cute! I love the personalization!
My kids have made hand print turkeys out of paper, but never a cookie before. GREAT idea.
This is SO cool! When I have kids, I’m shipping them to Aunty Aimee’s house 😉
Ha ha… This made me giggle .. bring em on over .. I will candy them up for you !
I’ve never seen the hand print turkey cookies, either. What a fun activity for the kiddos.
These are adorable and I am def. trying these with my nieces and nephews this Thanksgiving! They will love love love it! Thanks!
That is so fun! I have seen decorations using hands as turkeys but never cookies. So neat!