Thanksgiving Turkey Sugar Cookies #AirheadsCrafts

Monday, November 9, 2015


DISCLOSURE: I received free samples of Airheads candy from Smiley360 to facilitate this post. All opinions are my own.

I love the look of decorated sugar cookies, but I don't have the patience to make them. It takes a lot of time and effort to make the cookie dough, cut out the shapes, bake them, cool the cookies, make the royal icing, tint the icing to the desired colors and decorate the cookies. I usually only do that at Christmas time because of how laborious it is.

Airheads Candy recently sent me some of their candy to make an edible craft. I thought it would be cute to use the Airheads like fondant and decorate a sugar cookie! I've never worked with Airheads before and thought it would be a fun way to make decorated cookies.

First, I made a batch of one of my favorite sugar cookie dough recipes. It's from Sweet Sugarbelle. She makes awesome decorated sugar cookies with royal icing. I like this sugar cookie recipe because you can use it right away. You don't have to refrigerate it, like other sugar cookie recipes. It's easy to work with and isn't super sticky, either.


I don't have a turkey-shaped cookie cutter. So, I thought I could use either my flower or maple leaf cookie cutter. I wasn't sure which would work better, so I cut out both.


After the cookies baked up, I thought the flower cookies would be easier to turn into a turkey than the maple leaf ones. Though, if all you have is a leaf cookie cutter, you can use that and freehand cut out the turkey feathers out of the Airheads candy.


To make the turkey cookies, I used  Orange flavored Airheads, Cherry flavored Airheads and Mystery flavored Airheads. I heated them in the microwave for about 5 seconds before using them (unwrap them first!) to make them a little more pliable.

How To Make Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

1.  Start with a sugar cookie.  If you have a turkey-shaped cookie cutter, you can certainly use that instead. A round cookie cutter could work, too.


2.  Assemble your tools. I used orange, red and white Airheads. I used my mini fondant roller and a fondant rolling mat (not shown), but you could roll them out on wax paper, too. I cut the shapes out with the flower cookie cutter and a pizza cutter. I also used a curved piping tip (Wilton Tip 81) to make indentations in the Airheads to look like feathers. If you don't have the tip, you don't really need to do it. I also used candy eyes for the turkey's eyes.


3.  Roll out the White Mystery flavored Airheads and cut out an oval shape for the body. Place it in the center of the cookie.


4.  Add a pair of candy eyes to the body.


5.  Using the flower cookie cutter, cut out the feathers from the orange and red Airheads. You may need to use the pizza cutter tool to cut out the shapes.


6.  Place the feathers on the cookie.


7.  To make the feet, cut two small triangles from the Orange flavored Airheads.


8.  Using a knife or the pizza cutter, cut two notches at the bottom of the triangles and separate to make the different toes.


9.  Add the feet to the turkey and using Piping Tip 81, make indentations in the red and orange Airheads to look like feathers.


10.  Cut a small triangle out of the orange Airheads for the beak and a small strip of the red for the wattle. Place it on the cookie.


I thought the turkeys came out really cute and they weren't that hard to make. I didn't have that many Airheads so I only made two. I think these would be cute to make for Thanksgiving. Wrap up the cookie in a treat bag and place it at each place setting!


Have you crafted with Airheads before? I'd love to see your creations! Share them in the comments!

4 comments:

  1. What a cool way to decorate cookies. I just gave away lots of these candies.

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  2. Those are so cute!! We are thinking of doing Turkeys too :)

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  3. Super cute idea. I'll have to try that we have some of the Air Heads

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  4. Those look so yummy and fun to make.

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