These easy Rolo Turkey Pretzels are a cute Thanksgiving treat made with pretzels, Rolos,
candy corn, and candy eyes. Fun, festive, and easy to make!
I’ve loved cute looking holiday treats since I started this website (over a decade ago…and where does the time go?!). If you’re old enough, you might remember when cake pops were all the craze. One of my first recipes was turkey cake pops for Thanksgiving. While I don’t care to ever make another cake pop again (haha), I DO still like the idea of making “fake” turkeys as a Thanksgiving treat.
And here is my latest creation: turkey pretzels with Rolos. They’re easy to make- especially after the first one or two when you get the technique down. They’re a great combination of salty pretzels and sweet caramel and chocolate.
If you’re looking for another cute Thanksgiving treat, check out these Nutter Butter Turkeys.
Step-By-Step Pictures
These are actually very easy to make. Especially once you’ve gotten one or two done and have the technique down. But I included step-by-step pictures so you can see how to arrange the candies, how the chocolate should look after the oven, etc.
Recipe Ingredients & Notes
• Pretzels- I used Snyders Mini Pretzels, but any small twist pretzel will work.
• Candy corn- you can use the harvest variety of candy corn if you would like, but I wanted the yellow and orange of regular candy corn for the feathers instead of more brown.
• Mini M&Ms for beak- this is one area that recipes vary quite a bit. I think the mini M&Ms are the perfect size, and picking out the orange and yellow isn’t taxing. Some people use Reese’s Pieces- with some cutting them in half, others leaving them whole. But they are larger than mini M&Ms so your turkeys will look differently than these when finished. One person suggested chocolate coated sunflower seeds if you’re looking for a creative twist.
• Red decorative icing- completely optional. As you can tell from the pictures, I found it unnecessary. I did test it on a couple of turkeys, but didn’t find it improved the overall appearance. In fact, I thought it distracted.
• Cooking temperature and time. The most common variation of this recipe also recommends 275°…but says to cook for only 1 minute. I found the Rolo candies too hard to work with, though. If their pictures are accurate, however, the final turkeys are a bit “neater” in appearance than mine. You can certainly give it a try if you would like.
-One baker recommended 300° for 2 minutes. I didn’t even test this. 2 minutes at 275° was already verging on too long. I had no desire to increase the cooking temperature.
-Lastly, I found 2 different recommendations for 3 to 4 minutes at 250°. I tested one batch at this temperature and it worked. But I saw no reason to cook extra time at a lower temperature when precisely 1 minutes and 45 seconds already worked.
• I suggest working in batches of 6 at a time. This allows time for assembly before the chocolate hardens too much. And by the time the assembly is done, the turkeys can easily be moved to the counter and the same baking sheet re-used.
• Assembly- if the Rolo is too soft or candy corn won’t stick, allow the “melted” chocolate to rest for one minute before starting assembly. This only happened with one batch for me. Not sure why that batch melted so much quicker. But allowing it to sit 1-2 minutes worked perfectly.
• I absolutely, 100% recommend 10 minutes in the refrigerator to set at the end. By the time I was done with final batch of 6 (about 30-40 minutes after the first batch was done), the chocolate from the very first batch still wasn’t 100% set. It was very easy to move all the prepared turkeys to a parchment-lined sheet and stick in fridge for 10 minutes at the very end. They were perfectly set after that and I was able to store them without worrying.
Rolo Turkey Pretzels Recipe
Rolo Turkey Pretzels
Equipment
- Parchment paper
- Toothpicks
Ingredients
- 24 Small pretzels
- 24 Rolo candies unwrapped
- 72 candy corn white tips cut off
- 48 small candy eyes
- 24 mini M&Ms orange and yellow
- red decorative icing optional
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 275°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lay another piece of parchment paper on the counter for completed turkeys to rest on.
- Prep ingredients. Cut the small white tips off the candy corns. Unwrap the Rolo candies. Open the candy eyes package. Sort out the orange and yellow mini M&Ms.
- Arrange 6 pretzels on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Place the point side "up" and the two bumps "down". Place one Rolo candy on each pretzel.
- Bake for 1 minute, 45 seconds in pre-heated oven. (The candy should still be holding its shape, but the chocolate should have a slight glossy look under the light.) Remove from oven.
- Gently press/tap across the top of the Rolo candy with a toothpick to flatten very slightly.
- Gently press three candy corns in the top edge of the slightly melted Rolo candy to make feathers. You might have to hold them a minute for them to set a bit.
- Add two candy eyes and one mini M&M for the beak.
- Repeat with the remaining 5 pretzels & Rolo candies on the baking sheet.
- Carefully transfer to parchment paper on counter to allow to set.
- Repeat steps #2- #8 with the remaining ingredients.
- Optional: after all the turkeys are assembled and on counter, add small amount of red icing next to beak for wattle.
- Carefully transfer all the turkeys to a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Place in refrigerator for 10 minutes to allow them to finish setting.
- Store at room temperature in an airtight container or Ziploc bag.
What Did You Think?
There you have it: cute Rolo Turkey Pretzels for Thanksgiving. Judging by my 4-year-old’s reaction (and the neighborhood kid’s reactions), these are going to be a hit if you make them.
Is there anything you loved? Anything you didn’t like? Let me know by rating the recipe (using the stars on the recipe card) and/or leaving a comment on the post.
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