Abomination Turkeys

The bane of my existence is to make rice krispie turkeys every Thanksgiving. My lack of patience and skills in the arena of food decorating usually never fails to deliver, shall we say, unique creations. But I have to say this year, there's not a hideously deformed one in the bunch.  There aren't any zombie turkeys that had to be pieced back together with blood colored candy melts.  I even tried something new which is usually a recipe for disaster.  Even still my husband insisted on eating one of my balls before I "turned them into abominations". 

So here are my cute little abominations...

The Golden Oreo Rice Krispies Treats recipe that inspired these is at piesandplots.net and a nod goes to joyofbaking.com for the addition of vanilla extract and salt. 


Golden Oreo Rice Krispie Turkeys

20 Golden Oreos, divided
1 10oz bag of mini marshmallows or 40 regular marshmallows
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
3 1/2 cups Rice Krispies cereal
1/4 tsp vanilla (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)

candy corn
mini M&M's
6 white candy melts*
6 red candy melts

Coarsely chop 10 of the Oreos cookies, mix with the rice krispie and set aside. Process the remaining 10 Oreos into fine crumbs, set aside in a small bowl. Melt the butter and salt in the saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the marshmallows and constantly stir until the marshmallows have completely melted. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.  Stir in the Oreos and Rice Krispies cereal until all the cereal has been coated. As soon as the mixture is cool enough to touch, with buttered hands start forming it into 1.5 - 2 inch balls. Keep hands lightly buttered throughout this process. These need to be fairly tight and firm, but don't squeeze so hard you crush the cereal. Dip them into the crumb mixture to lightly coat.  Work quickly while the mixture is still warm and pliable.  After they are all coated, roll them through the remaining crumb mixture one more time, pressing the crumbs firmly.

To decorated insert candy corns for tail feathers.  Melt white candy melts to attach eyes. I microwave them in the corner of a plastic freezer bag at 50% power for 30 seconds.  Mush it around and microwave for another 20-30 seconds. Snip of the end of the bag and gently squeeze to apply.  Same thing for the red candy melts to attach the beaks. This year I trimmed the ends off the candy corn beaks.  I think they look better shorter. 

Exhibit A

*Technically I use white chocolate, but candy melts are easier.  See exhibit A where I had to prop up beaks while waiting for poorly tempered chocolate to harden.




Here's last year's variation.  I used the regular Rice Krispies recipe but substituted half the rice krispies with a knockoff brand of cocoa krispies.  Which is funny, because the original turkey recipe that started this whole mess years ago, called for cocoa krispies.  But they are gross, so we make albino turkeys. Well, Mom's Best makes a Crispy Cocoa Rice cereal that actually has a nice flavor. It would still be too sweet to use full strength, therefore the half and half mix, which might sound a little weird, but everyone liked it.  The one problem I encountered was the mixture was really gooey, I'm guessing it's because of the sugar coating on the cocoa cereal.  I added a 1/2 cup more of both cereals and that helped, but I still had a lot of turkeys fall apart once I started stabbing them with candy corn.  If I do it again, I'll use a firmer hand shaping the balls and maybe let them sit for a bit before slapping stuff on.  The result was lots of deformed zombie turkeys last year. 

And the year before I tried sprucing things up with some green candy melts. 

And then there was this cute little guy.  I'd like to say he wasn't eaten by zombies.  I'd really like to be able to say that...and now you are caught up on three years worth of sad little flightless rice krispies treats.