The Rice Crispy Treats Turkey Centerpiece is an all-around great Thanksgiving project.  It’s fun to make, admire on the table and then of course, eat.

In my family there are quite a few of the little guys (and some big ones) who will not touch pumpkin pie or well, pumpkin anything.  So I set about dreaming up a dessert that the ‘Peter, Peter  non-pumpkin-eaters’ would enjoy.  I thought about just making plain old rice crispy treats, but then I hit upon the thought of shaping them like a turkey.

To begin with I made a double batch of rice crispy treats. (You can get the official recipe here.)

I then pressed about 2/3 of it into a greased  12″ round pan and the rest of it into a 10″ round pan.  (These pans are from a wedding cake set like this one.)  I allowed them to cool, till not hard, but still pliable.

I used about 1/2 of the 12″ pan to make the body.

I used a simple plastic platter to form the body on.  I rolled-up the half circle and formed a large egg-shape that was flat on the large end for the body.

I used 2 quarters of the 10″ pan to form the drumsticks.  (You may need to use toothpicks to get the drumsticks to adhere to the body.  Just make certain they are removed before eating!)  You may notice that I had to remove the drumsticks to apply the wings which were had Reeses Pieces pressed into them.  I then re-applied the legs. :p.

I cut the tail pieces from the remaining half circle in the 14″ pan.  I cut them into long thin triangles — about 12.  The ‘feathers’ were obviously not going to stand up by themselves and scouted around the pantry until I found a 14″ Wilton Cake Platter.  It is silver on the top and cardboard on the bottom.  (You can find them here.)

I folded and glued the Wilton Cake Platter in half.  I used some  emergency butter-cream frosting I had in the freezer to glue the feathers to the platter on both sides. I also decorated the feathers with some Reese’s Pieces which I pushed into the still-sticky feathers.  I added Reese’s pieces to the body then I tipped the tail part up after I felt like it had set-up and used a two more toothpicks to hold in place. (I added a few ornamental autumn flowers and leaves at the back.

I cut the remaining rice crispy treats in the 10″ pan in half and used them as wings .  (I also decorated these with Reese’s Pieces.) I inserted the paper head  into the back, which I’d printed up on card-stock, cut out  and taped  bamboo skewers to the back.  I made the head out of an free-to-use illustration I found.  (Thanks to Susan Fitch for sharing her adorable turkey illustration.)

You can get the Turkey head printable here.

Cut out around the head and fold on dotted line.  Glue or tape skewers to the back. The skewers should have about two inches hanging below the picture to insert into the body.

We had a discussion at the table that I may have put the legs on backwards. -sigh/giggle- and the guys (yes, the men) began discussing how they would engineer the next one. Too funny. 🙂  Enjoy!