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Looking for a fun thanksgiving themed dessert? Look no further than my turkey donuts. Using simple ingredients, I'll show you how to make a cute kid-friendly turkey decorated treat.
What You Need for Turkey Donuts
You only need three products to make these turkey decorated donuts:
- Frosted donuts - I used my chocolate baked donuts frosted in ganache. But, you could use other donuts including store bought varieties. The key is to have iced donuts with the frosting nice and thick, not just a basic glazed donut. This should also be plain, so no sprinkles or designs, for best results.
- Candy Corn - great way to use up leftover Halloween candy!
- Edible eyes - these can be made from scratch using fondant or bought pre-prepared such as candy googly eyes.
Making a Cute Donut Turkey
So these are truly so simple to throw together! They're great if you want to whip up a cute dessert or have a fun activity to keep kids occupied on Turkey Day.
There are four steps to these turkeys:
- You'll want to first create the tail feathers of the turkey. I do this by using about 5 or 6 candy corns. Pressing each piece firmly (point down) into the frosting at the top edge of the donut. The more fresh the frosting, the easier this will be for them to stick.
- Next, make two little wings with two more pieces of candy corn. Place these out towards the sides, a bit away from the row of tail feathers.
- Then, for the beak, I found the orange and brown candy corn pieces with the brown base removed gave the best aesthetic. But, honestly any candy corn will work here! To help differentiate it a bit from the feathers, cut the base off. This will make it a smaller piece. widest side should be stuck into the frosting and the point sticking out.
- Finally, place eyes. You can make these out of fondant, which gives you a bit more freedom. Or, you can buy some little candy eyes such as these.
FAQs for Turkey Donuts
This really depends on the donuts being used. If these are fresh made (such as my chocolate baked donuts), the assembled turkey donuts will last for about a day and can be made the night before. After a while, the candy corn may start to fall out of the frosting or break, so these are best eaten as freshly assembled as possible.
Unfortunately these don't hold up well in the freezer, so don't plan to make too far in advance of serving!
While this recipe is using candy corn, you can most definitely replace this with alternatives if there is another sweet you'd like to use. The key aspects you're looking for is something stiff enough to stick firmly into the donut frosting. You may find gummies a bit too soft to be effective. Shape wise, triangles give the best look for the feathers, wings and beak components. This recipe isn't intended to be comprehensive and should be seen more as an idea to play around with!
Decorated Turkey Donuts
Ingredients
- 12 frosted donuts use a batch of my chocolate baked donuts or any store bought donut with plain frosting (chocolate or vanilla).
- 1½ cups candy corn (approximately 100 pieces for a dozen turkeys)
- 24 small edible eyes
Instructions
- Begin by placing tail feathers. Press pieces of candy corn, tip facing down, into the frosted donut along the top edge. Use 5 or 6 pieces, placed next to each other, to create a small row.
- Next, place wings - one piece of candy corn on each side of the donut. Again, tip pressed into the frosting.
- To create the beak, cut or break the base off of a piece of candy corn to shorten this slightly. Then press the wider section into the frosting near the tail feathers so that the tip sticks out, over the centre donut hole.
- Finally place two edible eyes between the row of tail feathers and the beak.
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