Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes – The Easy Way

Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes are so much fun to make and eat for Thanksgiving dessert. Learn how easy it is to whip up a quick batch of these yummy Thanksgiving treats.

Turkey Cupcakes

When you are hosting a holiday and children are in attendance, you better make sure to have something other than pumpkin pie for dessert.

That’s where these adorable turkey cupcakes come in. Not to mention how cute they will look on one of the Thanksgiving dessert tables. Making these cupcakes would be such a great family activity to do together.

A few years ago I shared this idea for Thanksgiving cupcakes on The Girl Who Ate Everything. I added a little something extra to this turkey day recipe by including free printable cupcake toppers.

Although these chocolate cupcakes are a stand alone favorite, I think adding a printable cupcake pick to the top of the cupcake takes our favorite recipe up a notch.

Turkey Cupcakes Recipe

Let’s face it, during the holiday season the last thing we need is to add more to our plate (no pun intended). When it comes to the Thanksgiving season, we want to focus on being thankful and not adding stress to our lives.

Let’s be real though. When we think of Thanksgiving we often think of FOOD. Besides, this will be such a fun project for kids of all ages.

So while you’re at the grocery store for the hundreth time, pickup these ingredients so that you can make these easy turkey cupcakes.

Dry Ingredients: Box Mix

I always go for chocolate but can certainly make vanilla cupcakes too. The frosting will be chocolate so the inside doesn’t matter.

Wet Ingredients

Eggs
Water
Oil*
*If you want to lighten up this dessert just a bit, substitute all of wet ingredients for one 12 oz can of your favorite diet soda.

Kitchen Tools

If you bake or cook on a regular basis you probably have most of these in your kitchen already. Here’s what you need to pull out for to make the perfect dessert for Thanksgiving.

Bowl of a Stand Mixer – or any large bowl will do
Kitchen Shears – this comes in handy for opening the dry cake mix bag. Those things can be tricky to pull open.
Hand held mixer or Kitchen Aid Mixer
Wooden Spoon
Flexible Cake Spatula
Optional: Piping Bag and Round Tip for cake decorating
Cupcake Liners
Cupcake Tins
Lollipop Sticks
Tape
Free Printable Cupcake Toppers (download them below)

Other Important Ingredients

These cute turkey cupcakes just can not happen without the following items:

Chocolate Sprinkles
Bag of Candy Corn – this is where some of the leftover Halloween candy can come in. These are your turkey’s tail feathers.
Canned Chocolate Frosting – If you’re making these as fun Thanksgiving activity at a Thanksgiving party, then you will want to go with canned frosting.
Small Candy Eyes – If you are unable to find candy eyes, I’ve seen this turkey cupcake recipe made with Oreo cookies and a brown m&m for the eye.

How to Make Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes

This easy dessert is takes a short amount of time once your cupcakes have cooled and are ready for frosting.

Simply spread a little frosting on each cupcake.
Dip the frosted cupcakes in chocolate sprinkles.
With the tip of the candy corn pointing down, add a row of 5 to the edge of the cupcake. Feel free to add a second row of feathers.
Add your candy eyes below the feathers.
Add a nose by inserting the tip of a candy corn into the cupcake right below the eyes.
*Optional – Give these cupcakes a little extra flair by adding cute Thanksgiving cupcake pick to the top. FREE DOWNLOAD below.

There you have it, the perfect Thanksgiving kids dessert for your holiday table.

If you are hosting an adult only Thanksgiving or have been tasked with bringing a dessert, you can still make these cupcakes but skip the turkey element.