Turkey Cupcakes – Life Love and Sugar

November 16, 2024

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These Turkey Cupcakes are vanilla cupcakes frosted with enjoyable, colourful buttercream within the form of a turkey! They’re simpler to make than they appear and so festive for Fall and Thanksgiving!

Why You’ll Love These Turkey Cupcakes

Colourful, festive and lovable – what’s to not love?! These cupcakes are certain to get a number of “oohs” and “aahs” as you break them out to serve them. As a bonus, they style nice too!

Enjoyable and festive – These turkey cupcakes are good for this time of yr. Proper on theme! They’d be nice for a youngsters social gathering, Fall gathering or Thanksgiving.
Scrumptious cupcakes – Cute AND tasty! These vanilla cupcakes are my selfmade vanilla cupcakes with a contact extra oil for additional moisture. So yummy!
Simple to make – Not solely is the cupcake simple to place collectively, however so is the adorning. You simply want a couple of piping suggestions and somewhat endurance to make some lovable turkeys. Take a look at the step-by-step footage beneath for steering.
Customizable – I used a vanilla cupcake for the bottom, however you could possibly simply swap it up with chocolate cupcakes, pumpkin cupcakes, and even cinnamon sugar swirl cupcakes.

Ingredients for turkey cupcakes on marble countertop

What You’ll Want

These turkey cupcakes simply require some pantry staples and a handful of adorning gadgets and also you’ll be in your option to some lovable cupcakes. Scroll all the way down to the recipe card beneath for the measurements.

For the cupcakes

All-purpose flour – Make sure to measure it precisely, so that you don’t find yourself with dry cupcakes. I at all times suggest a meals scale. Alternatively, you need to use the spoon and stage technique.
Baking powder – For rise and good texture.
Salt – To deliver out taste.
Butter – Unsalted butter at room temperature is finest. You possibly can use salted butter, however you’d need to pass over some or all the added salt.
Vegetable oil – The mix of butter and oil provides the cupcakes nice texture and moisture.
Sugar
Vanilla extract
Eggs – You need massive eggs, not medium or additional massive.
Milk – Entire milk or 2% milk.

For the buttercream

Unsalted butter – This needs to be at room temperature in order that every thing combines nicely.
Powdered sugar – The powdered sugar provides quantity and stability to the buttercream. You possibly can cut back the quantity, however chances are you’ll not find yourself with sufficient buttercream and it might not be stiff sufficient for piping.
Vanilla extract
Heavy whipping cream
Salt – You don’t have so as to add salt, nevertheless it cuts down the sweetness a bit and provides taste.
Cocoa powder – I like to recommend pure unsweetened cocoa powder. A darker cocoa can be somewhat too darkish right here.
Gel icing colour – You’ll want 4 colours – yellow, orange, crimson and black. The gel colours are extra concentrated, so that you don’t want as a lot to get a deeper colour.

For Adorning

Two Wilton 104 suggestions – These are used for the crimson and orange “feathers”. You possibly can get away with only one, nevertheless it’s handy to have two and never have to clean between makes use of. Both manner works although!
Wilton 102 tip – The marginally smaller tip is for the yellow “feathers”. You’re working with much less area, so the smaller tip is matches somewhat higher.
Ateco 808 tip – A big spherical tip is good for creating the turkey physique.
Wilton 4 tip and Wilton 5 tip – I used tip 4 for the eyes and tip 5 for the beak. You possibly can use the identical one for each, however I do just like the distinction in measurement, you probably have them each useful.
Piping baggage – There are many choices on the market and you’ll normally discover them in shops like Walmart, Michaels and Passion Foyer. I have a tendency to make use of Wilton model. I discover that off model baggage on Amazon aren’t fairly as sturdy.
Couplers – Once more, I have a tendency to make use of Wilton, however you’ll be able to definitely attempt one other model. You possibly can normally discover these in retailer.

How To Make Turkey Cupcakes

These cupcakes aren’t onerous to make, however a visible at all times helps. Right here’s some step-by-step photographs of the method. You’ll find the printable model of the directions within the recipe card beneath.

Make the cupcakes

Prep: Preheat oven to 350°F and prep a cupcake pan with liners. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and put aside.
Mix moist components: Beat the butter, sugar, oil and vanilla extract in a big mixer bowl till gentle in colour and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs one after the other, mixing till nicely mixed after every.
Add dry components: Add half of the dry components to the batter and blend till principally mixed. Add the milk and blend till nicely mixed. Add the remaining dry components and blend till nicely mixed and easy.

Butter, sugar, oil and vanilla extract creamed in mixing bowl — Cream the butter, sugar, oil and vanilla.

Bake: Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full and bake for 15-18 minutes or till a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clear. Take away cupcakes from the oven and place on a cooling rack to chill.

cupcake batter in cupcake pan — Add the cupcake batter to the pan.

Make the buttercream

Mix buttercream components: Beat the butter till easy and creamy. Add half of the powdered sugar and blend till nicely mixed. Add the vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon of heavy cream and salt and blend till nicely mixed and easy. Add the remaining powdered sugar and beat till nicely mixed. Add extra heavy cream as wanted to get the correct consistency.
Shade the buttercream: Take away about 1 cup of buttercream and add to a different bowl. Add the cocoa powder and three tablespoons of heavy cream combine till nicely mixed. Divide the remaining vanilla buttercream between three bowls. Shade the biggest quantity of frosting crimson, the smallest quantity yellow and the opposite frosting needs to be orange.
Prep for adorning: Add the crimson and orange frosting to a piping bag fitted with the Wilton 104 tip and add the yellow frosting to a piping bag fitted with the Wilton 102 tip.

Adorn the cupcakes

Add crimson feathers: Begin with the crimson “feathers” across the outdoors of the cupcake. The bigger finish of the piping tip needs to be nearly touching the cupcake, however not fairly. Create the ruffle “feathers” by transferring the piping tip in direction of the surface of the cupcake, then in direction of the middle in small up/down actions that create a ruffle or wave-like design across the periphery.

two images together - one of piping on the red ruffles and one of the finished ruffles

Add orange and yellow feathers: Repeat the identical step with the orange after which the yellow, transferring inward for every colour so that you could see the one behind it.

two images together - one of piping on the orange ruffles and one of the finished ruffles

two images together - one of piping on the yellow ruffles and one of the finished ruffles

Make the turkey physique: Add the chocolate buttercream to a piping bag fitted with the Ateco 808 tip, or one other massive spherical piping tip. Pipe one steady physique and head. You’ll add somewhat extra strain for the big a part of the physique to make it bigger.
Make the turkey face: Add somewhat little bit of leftover chocolate buttercream to a small bowl and colour it with black gel icing colour. Add the black frosting to a piping bag with a small spherical tip, I used Wilton tip 4, and pipe on the eyes. Add a number of the remaining orange frosting to a piping bag fitted with one other small spherical tip, I used Wilton tip 5, and pipe on somewhat triangle for the beak.

two images together - one of piping on the body and one of the finished turkey with eyes and beak added

Ideas For Success

Measure flour rigorously. An excessive amount of flour will end in a dry cupcake. To measure precisely, I like to recommend utilizing a meals scale, however you can too use the spoon and stage technique in the event you don’t have one. Learn extra about measuring flour precisely right here.
Don’t skimp on creaming time. When creaming collectively the butter, oil and sugar, achieve this till the combination has considerably lightened in colour and develop into fluffy. This course of incorporates air into the batter which helps stop a very dense cupcake.
Buttercream consistency. The buttercream makes use of 5 ½ cups of powdered sugar. You possibly can add much less powdered sugar to the frosting in order that there isn’t a lot sugar, however you received’t find yourself with as a lot frosting and it received’t be as thick. You want it thick sufficient for the piping to remain in place. I extremely suggest utilizing the total quantity of powdered sugar.
Piping baggage. If you happen to don’t have a small spherical piping tip simply, you can too trim the tip off a piping bag or the nook off a Ziplock bag.

turkey cupcakes on wooden board with leaf sprinkles around

Learn how to Retailer Turkey Cupcakes

Retailer the cupcakes in an hermetic cupcake provider or in a single layer in an hermetic container tall sufficient to accommodate the frosting. You possibly can retailer them at room temperature for as much as 24 hours, within the fridge for as much as 4 days, or within the freezer for as much as 3 months. They’re finest loved at room temperature so allow them to sit on the counter for a bit earlier than biting in.

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