You know those construction paper hand turkeys we all made in elementary school? Yeah, you do. Well here I just transferred that idea to a more edible medium (unless you are still into eating paste?), for a fun holiday cookie or even an activity to keep little ones occupied while adults finish cooking the real bird.

These take a little bit of patience with the fruit roll ups but are otherwise crazy easy and simple to make. Mine of course came out gigantic because I traced my own freaky long hands, but kid-sized hands will yield much more reasonably sized cookies. Any size version will taste delicious.

Gobble gobble!

Spiced Sugar Cookie Hand Turkeys

For the cookies
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp salt
scant 2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

To decorate
fruit roll ups, assorted colors and flavors
small leaf or teardrop shaped cookie cutter
white frosting (I used the store bought stuff in a tube)
mini chocolate chips
food decorator pen

1. Cream butter and sugar together for 5 minutes with a mixer on high speed, until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and salt. 
2. Whisk together flour and spices and mix into the wet ingredients until completely combined.
3. Form dough into a disc and wrap in plastic. Chill at least 2 hours.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out half of the dough. Use a food decorator pen to trace hands on the dough surface, then cut out shapes with a paring knife. Using a bench scraper or spatula, carefully transfer hand shapes to a parchment lined cookie sheet. Chill at least 30 minutes.
5. Bake cookies for 15 minutes, rotating halfway through, until golden brown and set.
6. Let cookies cool completely then decorate.

Decorating tips:

• The fruit roll ups were kind of a pain to work with since they are so sticky. I found it easier to cut out the shapes in the fruit roll ups if I cut the squares into strips. That way, I wasn't stretching the entire thing while pulling the shapes apart. It was also much easier to cut out shapes when I layered two pieces together. This will give you darker feather pieces but also means you need more fruit roll ups, so keep that in mind. 
• I used all red (Mott's strawberry) fruit roll ups because they were the only ones I found that didn't have tattoos or pre-cut shapes in them. By all means, use whatever you want, and I do think that multi-flavored fruit roll ups would make for a fun colored turkey.
• Feathers can be made in advance and stored between two pieces of wax paper. You can then just roll up the sheet and store in a sealed plastic bag.
• To make the eyes, pipe a large dot of white frosting on the cookie then place a mini chocolate chip in the center.