Gobble gobble gobble! I just can’t stop looking at these cute little turkeys! I’ve been looking forward to fall so much that I didn’t even realize how close thanksgiving was. Here at the Nagla residence, we tend to have a big thanksgiving celebration. We even have our own top secret menu which takes quite some time to prepare
Thanksgiving Menu
Since I love to take control of cooking the meal each year, I try to have a good variety of dishes to serve. I made my first turkey about 5 years ago and haven’t looked back since. My whole turkey preparation process takes about 6 days from start to finish…yes, 6 days you heard me right. I start off by defrosting the bird in the fridge. I then clean the bird and soak it in a dry brine for 2 days. Once that’s complete, I rinse off the dry brine and prepare my herb marination. All it is is butter mixed together with the Naglas herb blend. For about a 10 pound bird, I like to use 2 cups of butter for this. I know, I know it seems like a lot of butter but trust me it’s thanksgiving. You deserve this 🙂 I like to spread the butter and herb mixture in between the skin and meat. It makes for the most moist turkey you’ll ever have! Once the turkey has been marinated, put it back into the refrigerator for about 3-4 days.
Dessert has always been a huge deal for me. Which is why I put together these cute little turkey cupcakes! They look so cute that I can’t help but just pop them into my mouth! And they were actually quite easy to make. I made mini cupcakes just because my family prefers them over the regular sized ones but you can make any kind that you like 🙂
To prepare these cute little turkey’s you will need the following,
– A batch of your favourite cupcakes
– Melted chocolate
– Candy eyes
– Buttercream frosting
– Red, orange and yellow gel food colouring
– Piping bags
– Wilton round tip #2 & petal tip #124 (any flat tip will do though)
Start off by preparing your turkey body. For this, I melted some dark chocolate and piped it into a peanut shape on some wax or parchment paper. While the chocolate is still at the liquid stage, add some cute little candy eyes. Wait for the chocolate to set once the eyes have been added.
In 3 small bowls, divide the buttercream equally and prepare the red, orange and yellow frosting. Add the coloured frosting into 3 piping bags with the petal/flat tip. Using the red frosting, pipe fan like strokes on the top third of the cupcake. Using the orange frosting, repeat on the second third of the cupcake. Finally with the red frosting, pipe the bottom third.
Yay! now that the hard part is over, we can enjoy the fun stuff in life 🙂 Carefully peel off the turkey bodies and put them onto the cupcakes. When I started this, I kept using my fingers and the heat kept melting the bodies 😦 Once the bodies have been put onto the cupcakes, take some yellow frosting and pipe out the beaks (using the #2 tip) and pipe out the snood/wattle with the red frosting. And voila! Your turkey is now complete!!!
Cooking with Bina 