6 Tutorials for Decorated Thanksgiving Holiday Cookies with Buttercream

Thanksgiving is around the corner! To celebrate, I made these fun decorated Thanksgiving holiday cookies with buttercream frosting.

 A couple of years ago, I made a turkey sugar cookie so this year it was time for the roasted turkey. But I couldn’t just do the roasted turkey cookie, I had to make the rest of the turkey dinner.

These Thanksgiving holiday cookies feature a Thanksgiving feast. There is the roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, macaroni & cheese, and corn on the cob, all ready in cookie form.

Now, you may be wondering, where is the stuffing? Where is the sweet potato casserole? What about the rolls? 

Well, these are all great questions and I suppose there could be even more Thanksgiving dishes that aren’t included in these Thanksgiving holiday cookies.

I mostly didn’t add these because the set would just be too large. When I create a tutorial, I purposely make more than one cookie per each design so I can photograph one and video another. 

Maybe next year I will add those missing Thanksgiving holiday cookies. But for now, this Thanksgiving cookie set is doing the job.

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Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Thanksgiving Holiday Cookies

As this is a large set, and you may not want to decorate each design, I have written out the individual supplies in Part 3. 

Regardless of which cookie(s) you decorate, you will need icing bags, cookie cutter(s), and gel food dye.

All of the cookies also use a palette knife (except the mashed potatoes, which uses an angled flat spatula.)

I tried to stick to the same Wilton decorating tips to keep the tutorial easy. As an example, you’ll need seven Wilton tip #5s (or use couplers.) 

The best place to buy Wilton decorating tips, both for price and quantity available, is Walmart or a craft supply store. If you have a baking supply store near you, that’s probably a good place, too.

You will also need ingredients for a crusting buttercream and sugar cookie dough, which are found in recipe card below.

Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags

Use the recipe card below for the basic recipe. You will not use the sprinkles for these Thanksgiving holiday cookies and will need quite a bit more food dye colors.

1. 1. Roll, cut out, and bake your sugar cookies according to the recipe. I made two to three of each design but you can divvy it up however you prefer.
   2. Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe and separate it into bowls in order to dye them according to which cookies you want to decorate. You can see the breakdown in Part 3 for each cookie.

Part 3: Decorating the Thanksgiving Holiday Cookies

Check out the video tutorial showing all six Thanksgiving dinner cookies then follow the step-by-step photo series tutorials below.

How to Decorate the Roasted Turkey Cookies

To decorate the roasted turkey sugar cookies, you will need:

• Three Wilton tip #2 piping tips
• One Wilton tip #5 piping tip
• One Wilton tip #8 piping tip 
• One Wilton tip #12 piping tip
• One Wilton tip #352 piping tip
• Palette knife
• 5 bags of icing – burgundy, light brown, dark brown, green, and red
• Oval shaped cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the burgundy bag of frosting and outline and fill in some of the oval cookies. The remaining ovals will be for the mac & cheese cookies. Smooth the frosting with a palette knife.
2. Attach the tip #12 to the light brown bag of frosting and pipe the turkey’s body, but don’t include the legs and arms. Smooth it out with the palette knife if needed (usually if the frosting is cold like mine was).
3. Attach one of the tip #2s to the dark brown bag of icing and pipe a bit of frosting onto the turkey’s body. Then, smooth it over with the palette knife.
4. Attach the tip #8 to the light brown bag and pipe the legs and arms.
5. Attach a tip #2 to the white bag of icing and pipe the bones at the end of the turkey legs.
6. Attach the tip #352 to the green bag of icing and pipe leaves around the roasted turkey.
7. Attach the other tip #2 to the red bag of icing and pipe some cranberries onto the greenery.

How to Decorate the Corn on the Cob Cookies

To decorate the corn on the cob sugar cookies, you will need:

• Two Wilton tip #5 piping tips
• Palette knife
• 2 bags of icing – white and yellow
• Rectangle shaped cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the white bag of frosting. Outline and fill in an oval shape on the left side of the cookie & then smooth it out with the palette knife.
2. Attach the tip #5 to the yellow frosting and begin to pipe kernels of corn around the oval. Use the white bag of icing with the tip #5 to pipe some of the kernels.
3. Once the oval is piped, pipe the rest of the kernels by piping rows of yellow and white lines.

How to Decorate the Mac & Cheese Cookies

To decorate the mac & cheese sugar cookies, you will need:

• One Wilton tip #5 piping tip
• Palette knife
• 1 bag of burnt orange/macaroni colored icing
• Oval shaped cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the burnt orange bag of buttercream and outline and fill in some of the oval cookies. The other oval cookies will be for the roasted turkey cookies. Smooth the frosting with the palette knife.
2. With the same bag of icing and tip size, pipe small macaroni/”c” shapes onto the cookie, positioning them in different angles. Do 2-3 layers of macaroni noodles.

How to Decorate the Cranberry Sauce Cookies

To decorate the cranberry sauce sugar cookies, you will need:

• Three Wilton tip #5 piping tips
• One Wilton tip #1.5 piping tip
• Palette knife
• 4 bags of icing – burgundy, green, red, and white
• Small circle shaped cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the burgundy bag of buttercream and pipe out frosting onto the cookie, avoiding the edges. Then, use a palette knife to smooth out the frosting. This will be the liquid part of the sauce.
2. Attach the tip #5 to the green icing bag and outline the edges of the cookie to represent the bowl.
3. Attach the tip #5 to the red bag of icing and pipe dots on the cookie, then do the same with the burgundy icing.
4. Attach the tip #1.5 to the white bag of icing to add some highlight onto the cranberry sauce, as it is a shiny sauce.

How to Decorate the Green Bean Casserole Cookies

To decorate the green bean casserole sugar cookies, you will need:

• Two Wilton tip #2 piping tips
• Two Wilton tip #5 piping tips
• Palette knife
• 4 bags of icing – cream/ivory, burgundy, green, and light brown
• Rectangle shaped cookies

1. Attach the tip #5 to the cream/ivory bag of icing and outline & fill in the majority of the rectangle cookies.
2. Smooth out the icing, you can be rough since it is portraying a cream of mushroom sauce.
3. Attach the tip #5 to the burgundy icing and outline the dish the green bean casserole will sit in. I did three rows of outline. Don’t forget to pipe the handles as well.
4. Attach the tip #2 to the green icing and begin to pipe small lines for the green beans.
5. Attach the tip #2 to the light brown icing and pipe the fried onions.

How to Decorate the Mashed Potatoes Cookies

To decorate the mashed potatoes sugar cookies, you will need:

• One Wilton tip #12 piping tip
• Microwave safe cup
• Fork
• Angled flat spatula (you can use a butter knife instead)
• 2 bags of icing – white and brown (if you are only making the mashed potato cookies and not the others, you can forgo the bag of brown and put it straight into the microwavable cup)
• Circle shaped cookies

1. Use the tip #12 on the white bag of frosting to pipe frosting on the larger circle cookies.
2. Use the angled flat spatula to smear the frosting around, making sure to keep it textured to resemble mashed potatoes. You can add another layer of frosting & repeat this step if needed.
3. In a small microwave safe dish, squeeze some of the dark brown into the dish and microwave for 5 seconds. Stir the frosting with a fork. If the frosting is melted, apply to the cookie. If it isn’t melted yet, do 5 more seconds. Don’t over heat the frosting, as it will seize.

That’s all of them! Like I mentioned above, I may add tutorials for sweet potato casserole, stuffing, and dinner rolls next year.

If you want to prepare these and bring them to a Thanksgiving dinner, make sure to check out my post on how to package and transport buttercream sugar cookies.

Save the Tutorial for These Decorated Thanksgiving Holiday Cookies

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