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Sorry spider haters, but it's true. In our neck of the woods as the October nighttime temperatures dip further and further towards freezing, real-life spiders are sneaking into the house and garage to look for warm hiding places. What fun to find one under the laundry basket, on the wall of the shower, or making a slow descent from the ceiling to one's dinner plate! It must be Halloween spider time.
And in all necks of all woods, Halloween time means spider decorations, plastic spiders in fake spider webs, spider crafts on Pinterest, cute baby spider costumes (for human babies, not spider babies), Spider-Man costumes of course, and even some cute spider treats!
This is my contribution to the cute spider treats arena. Tell your kids or Halloween party guests that featured on the menu are...
spider sandwiches!
Why you'll love these cookies
Fortunately, there are no real spiders in these sandwich cookies. But there are deliciously sweet raspberry preserves sandwiched between two chocolate cookies.
The spider legs are black licorice. A little white frosting holds the candy eyes in place and gives these arachnids their cute little smiles.
You can also choose to give them some meany eyebrows, fangs, or cool markings on their cookie-spider bodies. Spider Sandwich Cookies are sweet, eight-legged goodies your little monsters will love.
🔪 How to make this recipe
Step 1: Bake the cookies
Blend the dry ingredients together. Blend the butter, sugars, eggs, and flavorings together. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Scoop out portions of dough onto a prepared baking sheet, and bake the cookies for about 18 minutes. Let the baked cookies cool.
Step 2: Make the spider legs
Cut black licorice ropes into thin pieces that will be used for the spider legs.
Step 3: Put frosting into a piping bag
Scoop the white frosting into a resealable plastic bag and snip off a tiny bit of the corner to make a piping bag. The opening should be small so you can make the spider faces with the frosting.
Step 4: Assemble the spiders
Spread two cookies with jam. Arrange 8 spider legs on one cookie and sandwich it with the other. Pipe on a mean or happy face for each spider, including two dots of frosting to hold the eyes. Repeat these steps to make all the spider cookies.
Step 5: Enjoy!
Arrange your creepy, crawly, spider sandwiches on a platter and serve!
Speaking of spiders, any Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans out there? All this spider talk reminds me that they hilariously riffed two B movies about scary spiders: The Horrors of Spider Island and The Giant Spider Invasion. If you can find these episodes, they'd make great background entertainment for your Halloween party!
The recipe for Halloween Spider Sandwich Cookies is below, and here are more treats to share at your Halloween gathering!
💬 Try these cookies and tell me what you think! Rate the recipe by clicking on the stars and leave a comment below. Thanks!
Halloween Spider Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- ⅔ cup cocoa powder
- 2¼ cup all-purpose flour, unbleached
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cups granulated sugar
- 1¼ cups packed dark brown sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon strong coffee
Additional ingredients:
- ½ cup raspberry preserves
- 16 Twizzler Black Licorice Ropes
- ¼ cup white frosting
- 36 candy eyes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, combine the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the sugar, brown sugar, and butter for about 3 minutes until the mixture is fluffy.
- Add in the vanilla and egg, and mix until combined. Mix in the coffee.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in 2 or 3 additions, and mix together on low speed until combined. The mixture will be a little sticky.
- Drop the dough onto the lined baking sheets by rounded tablespoonfuls, with about 2 inches between each cookie. Flatten the balls slightly with your hand.
- Bake the cookies for about 18 minutes. The cookies will flatten and be just firm enough to easily move with a spatula. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Prepare the spider legs and frosting:
- Cut each licorice rope into 3 pieces. Then, cut each piece lengthwise into 3 thin strips. (Done this way, each rope should give you 9 legs. I included 18 extra licorice ropes in the ingredients in case any legs need to be redone!)
- Scoop the white frosting into a small Ziploc baggie. Press the air out of the bag and seal it. Squish the frosting into one corner, and then snip off a very tiny piece of the corner of the bag: the opening should be very small to pipe out the frosting.
Assemble the spiders:
- Place two cookies bottom-side up on a work surface.
- Spread ½ teaspoon of raspberry preserves onto each cookie.
- Arrange 8 of the licorice strips onto one of the cookies, 4 on each side, sticking out over the edge of the cookie.
- Place the other cookie preserves-side down on top of the other cookie to make the sandwich. Adjust the position of the legs if need be.
- Pipe two small dots of frosting on the top cookie where the eyes will go, and stick a candy eye onto each frosting dot. Pipe a mouth below the eyes.
- Repeat these steps with the remaining cookies, preserves, licorice strips, and candy eyes until all the spiders are assembled. With any leftover frosting you can add if you wish some meany eyebrows above the eyes, fangs to the mouths, or decorations to the spider bodies.
- Arrange the spider sandwich cookies on a serving platter (decorated with spiderweb doilies if you have them!) and serve.
- The sandwich cookies can be covered with plastic wrap and kept at room temperature for up to 3 days.
- Makes about 18 spider sandwich cookies.
Tell me what you think—comment below!