Thanksgiving is next week! My children love to bake and Thanksgiving is a great opportunity for them to help out in the kitchen.

Last year, the kids and I made a cute turkey cupcake cake to take to our family Thanksgiving celebration.

Here is a picture and instructions for this creative Thanksgiving dessert, along with the recipe for my favorite vanilla buttercream icing. The cake is easy enough to decorate that even little ones can help. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcake Cake

Bake your favorite cupcake recipe. You will need 30 cupcakes.

To make the icing, whip 2 sticks of softened butter for several minutes until fluffy. Add 3 cups powdered sugar, 2 T. milk or heavy cream, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Beat until light and fluffy.

Separate the icing into 4 bowls. Mix in food coloring to create red, orange, yellow and brown. Leave a small bit of icing white to make eyes.

Frost 13 cupcakes red, 9 cupcakes orange, 6 cupcakes yellow and 2 cupcakes brown. Choose one of the brown cupcakes to be the turkey’s face. Pipe two white circles for eyes, adding one chocolate chip to the middle of each eye. Pipe an orange triangle beak with a red wattle.

To assemble the turkey, place the turkey head in the middle of your cake board. Place the second brown cupcake underneath for the body. Arrange the 6 yellow cupcakes in a half circle around the head and body for the first layer of feathers. Create a second layer of feathers with the orange cupcakes and a third layer with the red cupcakes.  Pipe feet below the body on the cake board with leftover yellow or orange icing.

Happy Thanksgiving!