The Best Adorable & Easy Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes

Are you looking for the most fun, most adorable, and most deliciously festive baking project to create with your family this Thanksgiving? Get ready to gobble up these incredible, show-stopping, and completely charming Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes! They are the perfect, creative treat to get everyone into the holiday spirit.

This isn’t just a recipe; it’s a guide to creating a new, fun-filled family tradition that will be the absolute star of the kids’ table (and the adults’ table, too!). We start with an incredibly moist and warmly spiced, from-scratch pumpkin cupcake, top it with a rich and decadent chocolate buttercream frosting, and then the real fun begins. We’ll walk you through the simple, step-by-step process of building an absolutely adorable, edible turkey using a clever combination of cookies and candies.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Recipe Overview: The Ultimate Fun Thanksgiving Project

What makes these Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes so special is their perfect combination of a truly delicious, from-scratch cupcake and a super fun, creative, and surprisingly easy-to-assemble decoration. The pumpkin cupcakes are wonderfully moist and packed with fall spice, and the rich chocolate buttercream is the perfect, delicious “glue” for our project. This is a fantastic baking activity to do with kids in the days leading up to the holiday, and the final result is a wonderfully festive treat that is guaranteed to bring a smile to everyone’s face.

Metric	Time / Level
Total Time	2 hours
Active Prep Time	45 minutes
Difficulty Level	Intermediate
Servings	12 cupcakes

The Essential Ingredients for These Festive Cupcakes

This recipe is made from three simple components: a classic cupcake, an easy frosting, and a fun “decorating toolkit.”

• The Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes: This is our delicious, from-scratch base.
  • Pure Pumpkin Purée: It is absolutely essential to use 100% pure pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling. Pure pumpkin provides a wonderful, natural sweetness, a beautiful orange color, and an incredible amount of moisture.
  • Vegetable Oil: Using a neutral-flavored oil instead of butter is the secret to an incredibly moist and tender cupcake crumb that stays perfectly fresh for days.
  • Pumpkin Pie Spice: A classic blend of warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves that instantly gives the cupcakes that signature, irresistible “fall” flavor.
• The Rich Chocolate Buttercream:
  • Dutch-Process Cocoa Powder: For a truly rich, dark, and deeply chocolatey frosting, Dutch-process cocoa powder is a fantastic choice. It has a smoother, less acidic flavor than natural cocoa powder.
  • Room Temperature Butter: It is crucial that your butter is properly softened to room temperature. This is the key to a perfectly smooth, light, and fluffy buttercream that is free of any lumps.
• The Turkey Decorating Toolkit: This is where the real fun happens! You’ll need:
  • For the Tail Feathers: Flower-shaped ginger cookies (like Anna’s Ginger Thins®) and candy-coated peanut butter candies (like Reese’s Pieces®).
  • For the Head: Glazed donut holes, candy eyeballs, and candy corn for the beak.
  • For the Wattle: Red, round, or heart-shaped sugared jelly candies.
  • For the Wings: Peanut-shaped peanut butter sandwich cookies (like Nutter Butter®).
  • For the “Glue”: A simple mix of confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice creates a quick-drying edible glue.

Step-by-Step to the Cutest Thanksgiving Cupcakes

This is a fun and rewarding baking project. Let’s break it down into simple, manageable parts.

Part 1: Bake the Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Step 1: First, preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

Step 2: In a medium bowl, stir together the 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour, the 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, the 1 teaspoon of baking powder, the 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and the 1/4 teaspoon of fine salt.

Step 3: In a separate large bowl, whisk the 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, the 1/2 cup of light brown sugar, and the 2 large eggs together until the mixture is smooth and light in color. Whisk in the 1/2 cup of vegetable oil until it is just combined.

Step 4: Whisk in the 1 cup of pure pumpkin purée until the mixture is completely smooth. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and use a spatula to gently fold everything together until the batter is just smooth and no streaks of flour remain.

Pro Tip: The secret to a tender cupcake is to not overmix the batter.

Step 5: Divide the batter evenly among the 12 prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Step 6: Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Part 2: Whip Up the Rich Chocolate Buttercream

While the cupcakes are cooling, you can make the delicious chocolate frosting.

Step 1: In a sifter or a fine-mesh sieve, sift together the 3 cups of confectioners’ sugar and the 1/2 cup of Dutch-process cocoa powder onto a piece of parchment paper. This will ensure your final frosting is perfectly smooth.

Step 2: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl if using a handheld mixer), beat the 2 sticks of room temperature unsalted butter and the pinch of fine salt until the butter is light and creamy, about 1 minute.

Step 3: With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and cocoa mixture. Add the 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of the heavy cream.

Step 4: Once the ingredients are combined, increase the speed to medium-high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes, until the frosting is very light, fluffy, and smooth. Add a little more cream, one teaspoon at a time, as needed to make a light, easily spreadable frosting.

Step 5: Generously frost the top of each of your completely cooled cupcakes. Use a small offset spatula or the back of a spoon to make the tops smooth and flat.

Part 3: The Ultimate Turkey Decorating Guide

This is a perfect activity to do with kids! Let’s build our turkeys.

Step 1 (Make the “Glue”): In a small bowl, combine the 1/2 cup of confectioners’ sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Whisk with a fork until it is smooth and has the consistency of a thick glue. Add a tiny bit more lemon juice if needed.

Step 2 (Create the Tails): Use a small dab of your sugar “glue” to adhere 7 of the peanut butter candies to each of the 12 ginger cookies to look like the feathers of a turkey’s tail. A row of 5 on the outer edge, with 2 more underneath, looks great. Lay the finished tails flat on a piece of parchment paper to let the glue set for about 15 minutes.

Step 3 (Create the Heads): Cut a small, flat slice from the side of each of the 12 doughnut holes so that they will be able to sit flat on top of the cupcakes. Use a dab of the glue to stick 2 candy eyeballs onto each doughnut hole “head.” Cut the yellow end from each piece of candy corn and discard it. Use the tip of a paring knife to carefully cut a small slit just below the eyes on each head, and then stick the orange part of the candy corn into the slit to make a beak. Cut each of the 4 red jelly candies into 3 small, half-moon shapes. Glue one of these to the side of each candy corn beak to create the “wattle.”

Step 4 (Create the Wings): Take your 12 peanut-shaped peanut butter cookies. Lay each cookie horizontally and, using a sharp knife, cut each of the rounded sides off on an angle. This will give you two perfect, wing-shaped pieces from each cookie.

Step 5 (Final Assembly): Carefully stick one of the finished “tails” into the back of each frosted cupcake, pressing it in at a slight angle. Place one of the finished “heads” on the top of the cupcake, in front of the tail. Finally, place the two “wings” on the sides of the cupcake. Your adorable turkey is complete!

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Storage and Make-Ahead Tips

These festive cupcakes are a great treat to make ahead for the busy holiday season.

• Make-Ahead: You can bake the cupcakes up to 2 days in advance. Let them cool completely and store them in an airtight container at room temperature. The chocolate buttercream can also be made up to 3 days in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Just be sure to let it come back to room temperature and give it a quick whip with your mixer to make it fluffy again before you frost the cupcakes.
• Storage: The finished, decorated cupcakes can be stored in a single layer in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

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Creative Recipe Variations

This fun and festive cupcake is a wonderful base for your own delicious and creative twists.

1. Use a Shortcut Cake Mix: If you are very short on time, you can use your favorite spice cake mix or a yellow cake mix to make the cupcakes instead of the from-scratch version. Simply add 1 cup of pumpkin purée to the cake mix batter for a similar flavor.
2. Try a Different Cookie for the Tail: If you can’t find the flower-shaped ginger thins, a classic, round shortbread cookie or a large vanilla wafer would also work beautifully as the base for the tail feathers.
3. Use a Different “Head”: If you can’t find glazed donut holes, you could also use a large marshmallow, a chocolate truffle, or a large, round chocolate candy (like a Lindor truffle) to create the turkey’s head.

Enjoy Your Fun and Festive Thanksgiving Treat!

You’ve just created a wonderfully fun, creative, and delicious cookie that is sure to be the star of your Thanksgiving dessert table. These Thanksgiving Cornucopia Cookies are a perfect harmony of a classic, soft sugar cookie and a fun, festive decoration that is a joy for the whole family to create together. It’s a sweet and simple way to celebrate the abundance of the season.

We hope you and your family love making—and eating—this adorable new tradition!

If you enjoyed making this recipe, please leave a comment below or share it with a friend who is looking for a fun holiday baking project!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)