Designer Bakery: Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies

With all the craziness in the kitchen today we actually had a moment or two to sit down and decorate some sugar cookies. My dad and two brothers did most of them with me. Brittany and the little kiddies did a few at the end. Just some pictures of what we came up with.

We had quite a few turkeys. We experimented with different designs on the feathers. Here is one using the technique I used with the fall leaves, dragging with a toothpick while frosting is still wet.

I was so excited about this next turkey cookie cutter. I got it at Crate and Barrel. But it didn't work out too great. The little ankles on the turkeys were too skinny and wouldn't come out of the cookie cutter without breaking. (You can see this one is missing a foot!) Then when I tried to get them off the pan once they were cooked their heads and feathers broke off. Maybe I just needed a bigger spatula, but anyway, this the only one we managed to salvage. My brother, Jeff, decorated this one.

Here is the other turkey cookie cutter I had. Not as cute, but much easier to make.

We made more leaves.

And then Brittany came in at the last minute and made the most beautiful leaf of all. She outlined, and then used the fill colors without borders. Red, then orange, and then yellow in the center. The way the colors started to run together made for the most amazing leaf effect. I'll definitely be doing this next year.

We saved a few cookies for my neices and nephews to decorate. For being five and seven they were pretty good with the outlining. Austin was into outlining everything only and then giving it an eyeball. He even gave the turkey without a head an eyeball. Ali liked outlining one color and then inside with another color until the cookie was all colored in. I think in a few years I'll have to recruit these two to work for me.