Create this fun Gingerbread Tur-Yummy Turkey Bundt Character Cake. Sitting up on a tall cake stand it can survey the delicious turkey, stuffing, turkey, cranberries, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes on your bountiful table. It's a real character!
Or, use it to accent your dessert sideboard on the same tall cake stand at a party. It’ll watch over all the pies, cookies and bowls of homemade candy.
This is the Tur-Yummy Turkey Bundt Cake for the big day. This delicious and moist Gingerbread Bundt Cake is a fun one to make - and have the kids help with the decorating.
Your will need one Bundt cake to make this Tur-Tummy Turkey Bundt Character Cake.
- This recipe fits in a 10-12” Bundt cake pan.
- However, I made the entire recipe below but put the batter into two separate 6” Bundt cake pans. Then I used one cake for my Tur-Tummy Turkey and froze the other Bundt to make another project later.
- My Tur-Yummy Turkey fit juts right on a small dinner plate and stands about 10” tall with the feathers sticking up.
- I LOVE it when I can make two projects out of one recipe.
Preheat your oven to 350F degrees
Prep our Bundt baking pan:
- Lightly brush soft butter all over the inside of the pans, making sure to cover all the crooks and crannies.
- Dust the entire inside of the pans with flour.
- Turn the pans over and tap out the excess flour into your garbage container.
Prepare the pan for melting the candy melts:
Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Gather your Bundt cake Ingredients:
¾ C Butter, soft (1 1/2 sticks)
1 ½ C Brown sugar, dark
2 Eggs
1 Egg yolk
½ C Molasses
2 ¾ C Flour
2 t Ginger, ground
2 t Cinnamon, ground
½ t Cloves, ground
½ t Allspice
1 t Nutmeg, ground
½ t Salt
¼ t Baking soda
1 t Baking powder
1 C Water
2 Skewers to hold baked cake portions together
Choose your Frosting:
- Make your favorite cream cheese or vanilla frosting for the top of the body of the turkey. It should be a spreading consistency.
- With frosting gel, make it the color(s) you want for your turkey body.
- You’ll only a couple cups of frosting, depending on how much of the body you want to coat. I had some frosting left over from another project, so used that – about one cup.
Gather your decorating Ingredients:
- Use what you have on hand or go out to purchase others.
- 32 Candy melting discs, 8 each of 4 colors.
- 30 Sprinkles
- Two sugar eyeballs: I already had some on hand from another project.
- 2 Gummy citrus slices for the beak and wattle: I stole them out of my hubby’s sweets stash.
- 2 Frosting dollops to stick the eyes onto the face of the cake.
- 3 Toothpicks for connecting the beak and wattles to the face of the cake.
Mix and bake the Bundt cake:
- With an electric beater, beat the butter and brown sugar until fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time and beat before adding the next one. Just beat in until combined.
- Add and beat in the molasses just until combined.
- Sift together the dry ingredients – flour, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Alternately, add the flour mix and water into the molasses mixture. Just beat until combined. Do not overbeat.
- Pour the batter into the prepared 10-12” Bundt pan or two 6” Bundt pans.
- Bake in 350F degrees preheated oven for 55-65 minutes for the 10-12” Bundt pan. Or, Bake at 350F degrees preheated oven for 40-45 minutes for the two 6” Bundt pans.
- Test them with the clean toothpick test for doneness. After you stick the toothpick in the middle of one side of the cake, and the toothpick comes out clean, it’s done. Don’t overbake.
- Let cool on top of the stove for 10 minutes.
- Loosen and turn over so the cake(s) come out. I use the slim curved end of my orange-colored orange peeler to loosen up the edges. It works very well in the crevices without tearing the sides of the cake.
Assemble your Tur-Yummy Turkey Bundt Character Cake:
- With just one Bundt cake you can create the base for your Tur-Yummy Turkey.
- Lay it on a cutting board with the flat side down.
- Using a large knife, slice it into two parts from the top down. One portion should be just a little smaller than the other one. I figure one part (the front or head) to be 2/5 of the cake while the other part will be 3/5 of the cake for the body.
- Stand each of the two pieces on their sides, with the flat part on the bottom and the humped sides facing in one direction.
- Place the smaller portion in front of the larger portion so the ridges face you. The large flat sides will be on the backside.
- Separate them and place two skewers in them, press them together so they stay together for the holiday. You can also spread some frosting between to help them stick together.
When you have them assembled, the smaller piece will be in front and the larger piece will be in the back in order to hold your colorful feathers.
Make your favorite frosting and spread it:
- Wait for the cake to cool completely. After I have taken it out of the bundt pan, I let it cool and then chill it for at least an hour before frosting it with icing or cream cheese frosting.
- I only frosted the large hump. You may want to frost the entire cake. I didn’t since I wanted the dark brown color of the cake to show through.
- I scattered the colorful round sprinkles on the frosting before positioning the “feathers.”
Make your Tur-Yummy Turkey feathers:
- This is the fun part! Well, it’s ALL fun, but I especially enjoyed making the colorful turkey feathers and mixing the colors as I spread them with the back of my spoon.
- Place the candy melts a few inches apart on the parchment paper lined baking sheet. I used blue, yellow, orange and red candy melts.
- I placed two candy melts of the same color on top of one another to create one stack. For example, I had 8 blue candy melts and made 4 separate stacks of two candy melts in each stack. Then I repeated it for the other three colors. - So, I had 16 stacks of 2 candy melts in each stack.
- The two candy melts in a stack made a nice feather for my small Tur-Yummy Turkey. You may want to increase the number of candy melts in a stack if you are making a larger turkey cake, so you can make larger feathers.
- Leave enough space between each pile of candy melts so that you can spread and make a long tail to create a feather like shape.
- Place the pan with all the candy melts on it, into a warm oven (170F degrees) to warm the candy melts. I left them in the oven for about 4 minutes, checking them periodically to make sure they didn’t over melt or burn.
- Take the pan out of the oven and working quickly with the back of a spoon, set your spoon into one stack of candy melts, press down and pull it toward yourself making a curve for a turkey feather like shape. Lift the spoon off and repeat with the rest of the candy melt stacks. Don’t worry about cleaning the spoon between each color. That way, you’ll get colors mixed a little so you end up with multi-colored feathers.
- As you spread the melted candies to make your feathers, pull the spoon so half of the candy curves slightly to one direction. For the other half of the candy melt stacks, pull and curve the spoon slightly to the other direction. (That way you can line up the turkey feathers that curve to the left on the left side of the turkey. Place the feathers that curve to the right on the right side of the turkey. Or, mix them up for a fun variety of curves and colors. You’ll see what I mean when you begin to poke them into your cake.)
- Watch how different colors mix together. By the time you are done some of the feathers will feature four colors for a pretty combination!
- It’s easy to do and the turkey feathers do not need to be perfect. Remember, this is a fun and creative way to create the look of turkey feathers on this cake.
- Place the pan of turkey feathers in the refrigerator to harden, for about 20 minutes.
- Once hardened, the feathers will easily lift off the parchment paper.
Stick your turkey feathers into the Gingerbread Tur-Yummy Turkey Bundt Character Cake:
This is another fun part!
- Make sure the cake is frosted before you begin to add the turkey feathers…if you want it frosted. It will be pretty tough to frost it after the feathers are stuck into the cake.
- Look at your cake and make a little plan on where you want your feathers to appear. On a clean pan or cutting board, lay them out how you want the feather colors to mix. If you have feathers that are shorter than others, those work well on the outer edges.
- I found that with the dense cake, I needed to poke a sharp knife into it before I poked a feather into it. So, where you want to place a feather, use a sharp slim knife to make a slit, about ½”- ¾” deep. Push the narrow end of the feather into the slit. Repeat for each feather. Have fun arranging the turkey feathers – they are so pretty.
Make the beak and wattle for Tur-Yummy Turkey:
- There are some very cute wattles online so check them out. I took some time to see how other bakers created them for cupcakes or cookies. And, remember they do not need to be perfect! Have fun with them.
- The beak: Using whatever color you like, slice a beak shaped piece of one gummy citrus slice. Using part of a toothpick, stick it into the back of the beak and position it where you want to on the face of the turkey. Press it into the cake.
- The wattle: Using one or two more colors, slice pieces of gummy candy for two wattles. With your fingers, form them into long wattles. Using half of a toothpick in each piece of wattle, stick them into the cake a little lower than and to the side of the beak. Repeat with each wattle piece.
Place the eyes:
- Using a couple small dollops of frosting, pipe them where you would like to place the eyes above the beak and wattles.
- Then position the eyes on the frosting spots. I turned my little eyes cross-eyed to give the turkey a fun expression.
There you go! You have a cute and aromatic Gingerbread Tur-Yummy Turkey Bundt Character Cake for your Thanksgiving table.
- Use it as the centerpiece on your table. I used it as my centerpiece, giving it a prominent position by setting it on top of a tall cake stand and surrounding it with whole cranberries. It could survey all the delicious platters of stuffing, turkey, cranberries, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade breads and more.
- Later I used it on the dessert sideboard on the same cake stand at a party. It watched over all the pies, cookies, sweetbreads and bowls of homemade candy.
There are so many ways you can garnish your Gingerbread Tur-Yummy Turkey Bundt Cake for the holidays. Surround it with your favorite holiday foods and “Bake your own Memories!”