Turkey Cupcake Toppers!~ A Blog Tutorial

 

Learn how to make these CUTE, easy, and delicious Turkey Cupcake Toppers in this quick tutorial!

 

 

 

 

Today I am bringing you some sweet turkey cupcakes! For the past several days I've been staring down the candy aisle...hoping that a cute Thanksgiving idea would pop up and slap me in the face.

Well, finally, I'm happy to report that while the Mounds bars that I bought only made it into my secret candy drawer...I actually did make good use of Hershey Kisses!

With a little help from candy coating & almonds, we have some quick and easy turkeys for you to gobble gobble~

 

How to Make Chocolate and Almond Turkey Cupcakes

 

First, our key turkey parts...

Hershey Kisses (with the points lopped off),  almonds (mine are not roasted--I like the lighter color),  a food coloring pen for eyes (icing or coloring gel would work too), and melted candy coating (I used chocolate "bark" candy coating from the grocery store--Ambrosia is the brand, but any brand is fine.)

After melting the white candy coating, I spooned it into a piping bag and snipped off the very end.  

This eliminates the need for a piping tip.  I piped my feathers onto a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet.  You've seen me do this before ;0).  

I prefer to freehand, but if you'd like to make a template so that all feathers are uniform, you could just slide that template beneath the waxed paper and trace over it.

While the feathers were still soft, I pressed on the turkey body.  This was our Hershey Kiss minus the point (and flipped so the smooth side is up).

 Next, I piped a bit of the chocolate (brown) candy coating onto the top of the body.  

This acted as our glue for the almond head.  I used brown so that any excess would be less noticeable than if we had used white candy coating as the glue.

Almond heads are secure!  Make sure that you add the almonds as soon as you pipe your chocolate "glue", as it hardens fairly quickly.  

Then, I placed them in the freezer for a few minutes to firm them up!  Remember that you can always pop the turkeys (on the cookie sheet) in the freezer or fridge at any time during this project if you'd like to firm them up.

 Here, I'm giving them all beaks with the white candy coating.  After that, I began drawing on their eyes with the food coloring pen.  Things are coming together!

Because of our warm kitchen, I popped the turkeys into the freezer for a few minutes more (to firm them up) and then pulled them one by one to place on our cupcakes!   (Our chocolate buttercream swirls are piped with a Wilton 2D tip)

 

Don't they look cute?!! Still...we felt like something was missing... what do you think?

 

Turkey Wattles!  Yes.  Well, actually...I call it a wattle or a "gobbler" ;0) but in my quick Google search, I found that the red flappy on the beak is called a snood?  Who knew?  Not me...but I'm just glad that our turkeys have them --it adds some cuteness ;0)   

I used a small round tip (Wilton tip 3) to add that last little missing piece of the puzzle (using red buttercream).

Here they are!~

 

 

I hope you give our turkeys a try this Thanksgiving!  Not only are they cute & festive, but they taste great too!  

After making them, we thought that they would be so funny not just on cupcakes but on top of a cake too--a whole bunch of them! ;0) -- I could Google what a bunch of turkeys is called...but I've already reached my turkey research limit for the day. ;0) --Have a great week, and thanks for stopping by! xo

 

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