Easy Turkey-Shaped Lollipops for Thanksgiving

Turkey suckers, turkey lollipops- whatever you call them, these Thanksgiving treats are so much easier to make than you think! They're a cute, quick way to show some gratitude to friends and family, or just end your meal with a sweet treat.

Be sure to Pin this image for later, so you can make your turkey lollipops every year!

It isn't as hard as you think to make these little turkey-shaped lollipops. I tested these live on Facebook, ready to publish a Pinterest fail, but lo and behold, it wasn't that way at all!

Many thanks to LifeisPoppin for sharing this idea on Pinterest in the first place. My turkey pops are a tiny bit different in that I didn't use red hot candies, but everything else came from the Poppin' site! The only issue we had when trying to make these pops was finding Jolly Ranchers in yellow and orange. In order to get all of the colors you need for these little turkeys, you have to buy a bag of Jolly Ranchers 'Fruity Bash' tropical flavors and a bag of their original. The tropical ones were not easy to find, believe it or not. They didn't even have them in Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania (they are made by the Hershey Company, in case you didn't know). Go figure!

What You'll Need

-one bag of tropical Jolly Ranchers (because you'll need yellow and orange)*
-one bag of original flavored Jolly Ranchers (since you'll also need red and green)*
-orange Tic Tacs (for the beak)
-red fruit roll-ups (for the waddle, cut into triangular shapes)
-candy eyes 1/4" size work best
-lollipop sticks (mine were GIGANTIC. You can use whatever size stick you like, but my giants were 6" sticks, simply because I happened to have them in my baking drawer)
-parchment paper

*(each pop requires two yellow Jolly Ranchers, one orange, one red, and one green)

How to Make Turkey Lollipops

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Unwrap your Jolly Ranchers and line them up on your parchment paper as shown. Make sure that the Jolly Ranchers touch so that they will melt together correctly. **Also important to note is be sure to leave room for the stick placement. They are patterned on the parchment paper as shown so that the sticks don't get crossed when you place them after baking. If you're not sure, hold your sticks up to each set of jolly ranchers before baking to make sure the sticks don't get in the way of each other.

That last turkey-to-be has a purple feather because I ran out of green!

Bake your Jolly Ranchers in the oven for 5-6 minutes, or until they are melted into a general turkey shape. Mine took a little longer than 5 minutes, but my oven is a little crabby sometimes.

Roll a lollipop stick into the base of each turkey as soon as you take them out of the oven. Then place the candy eyes, Tic Tac beak and waddle on before the candy hardens. Push them down a little bit while the candy is still soft to make sure they stick well. If you have a lot of turkeys on your tray, be sure to move quickly, since they set fast. I find that making four or five at a time is your best option.

Cool completely and remove from parchment paper. You can put them in cellophane bags (I used the 4"x 9.5" size) for gifts or just eat them! They also make cute centerpieces or table setting decor. This year I am giving one to each of my dinner guests as a parting Thanksgiving favor!