Turkey Trouble

You remember the owl cake and cupcake post right? Let me remind you just in case you missed that gem:

http://pinstrosity.blogspot.com/2012/03/wise-owl-saysjust-go-buy-cake.html

Awesome, no?! Well we received a Pinstrosity submission that reminded us just slightly of our little owl friends. 

The Original Pin

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/turkey-cookie-treats/31890610-3bcf-4d9e-8706-91445256525b?source=searchresultpage

Aren't those cute?! Rebecca decided to make these for a work potluck "for the lucky suckers that had to work on Thanksgiving day." She says they tasted great, but they didn't quite look the same:

The Pinstrosity

Oh these make me smile. I love them. Really I do. And it made Em feel so much better about her Owl Cake/Cup Cakes (which were delicious too). As Missy over at Missy's Ugly Cookies says, "enjoying a cookie or treat has to be about taste before beauty" (oh gosh I loved her cookies). 

So..on to what went wrong and how to fix it. 

• We'll start with the beak and feet. 
• Besides the color difference in the frosting, it looks like what made a big difference from the original is Rebecca's frosting appears to be the gel kind you get in the cake section. You know the kind, it comes in a little small tube. Which that probably would have been what I used too, because that is what's available, the gel frosting doesn't dry the same, and it has that wet gel look. More grocery stores are starting to carry more decorating frosting other than just those gels, and a more "normal" frosting might have worked a little better. The original recipe calls for black decorating gel, but the only place the gel is used is for the little eyeballs. 
• Then the shape of the beak and feet make a difference. The more triangular the better.
• The eyes. Oh the eyes. That's where it always seems to get us. Martha (bless her creative soul and team workers) used what she calls baking bits for the eyes. Essentially, baking bits are like mini M&M's. It looks to me like full size M&M's were used on these cookies, which will throw off the ratio with the rest of the turkey cookie, giving a sort of bug eyed appearance. Smaller eyes would help. 
• The candy corn. There needs to be just a few more on each cookie. Adding 2 more corns, one on each side, would help the turkey look like he has a full tail of feathers and not a headdress. 

So, they don't look exactly like the picture, but I think their "fancy" (as my little cousin says...nothing is cute, it's fancy).