1 / Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Place the butter cubes and icing sugar in a stand mixer (or use a handheld electric whisk) fitted with the balloon whisk attachment and cream together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix again until combined. Sift in the potato starch and flour, then use a spatula to mix into a paste. avoid overmixing. Combine into a ball using your hands.

2 / Divide the dough into different portions, reserve about a third for the brown turkey bodies and then a small ball for the eyes (white and black dough). Divide the remaining dough so that the orange dough will be about twice as much as the red, and the yellow dough will be about twice as much as the orange. Colour each portion by kneading in the gel food dye. Try to handle the dough lightly and as little as possible. This will help to stop the dough sticking to your hands, plus the less you handle it, the more the cookies will crumble and melt in your mouth.

3 / On a floured surface, roll out the yellow, orange and red dough, then use round cutters to stamp out a circle from each—with the red dough being the smallest and the yellow being the largest. Stick the orange dough onto the yellow, and the red onto the orange (using a little water to help it stick). Use the large circle cutter just to cut into the base a little more so that it’s less rounded. Use tools to press dots on the dough. These are the turkeys’ feathers. Place on the lined baking sheet.

Note: I use 8.25-cm [3¼-in], 6.25-cm [2½-in] and 4.5-cm [1¾-in] cutters, but as long as you have 3 different-sized circular cutters it will work fine.

4 / Next, make the turkeys’ bodies. Stick a smaller ball of brown dough on top of a larger ball, squishing down so that they are flattened a little. Add the nose/beak using leftover yellow dough. add the eyes using the black and white dough. add the feet by cutting a star shape from the orange dough and sticking on. repeat and make lots of turkeys of all shapes and sizes. You can add eyebrows, flowers, necklaces, ties, etc. to all the roosters to personalize them. Lie the bodies on their backs on the lined baking sheet. Chill for 15–30 minutes in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 160°c [325°F/Gas mark 3].

5 / Put the baking sheet in the oven and bake the feathers for about 12 minutes. If they’re ready you should be able to easily slide a palette knife underneath and transfer to a wire rack. Just be careful not to drop them as they’re very fragile. Leave the bodies to bake for 20 minutes in total. they will expand a little and may crack very slightly, but will hold their shape well. transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool. Once cool, use a little royal Icing to stick the turkeys to their feathers.