These spicy molasses cookies are slightly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, just like a spider! Bwa ha ha. I try to put aside my hatred of spiders when I decorate and eat these delightful, flavorful cookies, because at Halloween it’s kind of fun to enjoy the food, yet be grossed out at the presentation—sort of a “love to hate it” situation.
The dough is very soft and must be chilled before rolling and baking, so planning ahead is a good idea. If you wrap it well, you can actually make this dough several days ahead…if you’re the efficient, organized type. (I salute you!)
I made several batches of these a few years ago for a holiday bazaar, and they sold like crazy. It’s a horrible picture, but you can see how huge they were.
But…not everyone wants a whole handful of cookie, so I improvised and made these cute little two-inch bites for this post.
The dough is very quick to make; just leave yourself plenty of time to chill it properly. It also helps to roll it out between two sheets of lightly floured parchment. And even though I really don’t like using shortening, it’s important in this recipe. All butter will make the cookies spread more, and you don’t want that!
| Spicy Spider Bites | Print |
- ½ cup butter, slightly softened
- ½ cup shortening
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 5½ cups all purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1½ teaspoons ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup molasses
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- *****
- Royal Icing - use your favorite recipe OR try mine:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons meringue powder (I use Wiltons brand, available in the cake decorating section)
- ¼ cup water
- ******
- Dark icing, melted chocolate, dark brown coated candy...whatever you want to use for the spider.
- In a large bowl (a stand mixer is helpful) beat together the butter, shortening, brown sugar, and white sugar until well combined.
- Add eggs and beat until incorporated.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, salt, and baking powder.
- In a small bowl combine the molasses and sour cream. Whisk in the baking soda. It will foam up and lighten in color.
- At low speed, add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the butter mixture. When most of the flour is mixed in, add ⅓ of the molasses mixture. Repeat twice, scraping the sides of the bowl often. Do not overbeat!
- Chill dough for at least 2 hours. Overnight is better.
- Heat oven to 375.
- Roll out ¼ of the dough at a time, leaving the rest in the refrigerator. Dough should be about ¼-inch thick. Cut into circles and place on parchment covered baking sheet, 1 inch apart.
- Bake small circles for 8-9 minutes, larger circles for 9-10 minutes. Touch the top of one cookie gently. If your finger leaves a mark, give them another minute. For crispy cookies, add an extra minute or two.
- Cool on a rack.
- To make royal icing: Combine powdered sugar, meringue powder, and water. Beat with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes, until thick and fluffy.
- Using a pastry bag and small tip (or a heavy zipper bag with the tip cut off) pipe spider webbing onto cool cookies: make a straight line from top to bottom, then side to side. Then two more lines diagonally, like cutting a pie into 8 pieces. Pipe near the outer edge of the cookie, swooping from one line to the next. Do it again closer to the center. That's it!
- Hint: You can also coat the entire cookie in a thin layer of icing, let it dry, and then draw the web on with a food color pen like Wilton's FoodWriter.
- You can make the spider out of dark chocolate frosting (this is one of those times I'd encourage buying a can of frosting for simplicity), ganache, or by piping melted chocolate for the legs and head, and using a dark brown M&M for the body.
Beat butter and sugar, then add eggs. Mixture should be light and fluffy.
In separate bowl, combine dry ingredients
In a small bowl, whisk baking soda into molasses and sour cream. It foams!
Alternate molasses and dry ingredients. Dry first, then wet. Repeat twice.
Cover dough and chill thoroughly.
Cut circles and bake on parchment. Size is up to you!
There are two decorating options I like:
Wait for the icing to dry (see the center? I didn’t wait long enough) and draw the web onto cookie with a food marker. OR pipe it with black icing or melted chocolate.
or pipe royal icing webs on plain cookies. I think the spiders show up a little better this way.
To make the spiders, simply pipe on legs and a small head, using black icing or melted chocolate (I stir a tiny bit of corn syrup into the warm chocolate, just until it thickens a little) and top it with a dark brown M&M. You can find lots of different spider shapes on Google.
I had intended to go all out with these—make brown recluse and black widow spiders—but it creeped me out so badly I just couldn’t do it. If you are tougher than I am, go for it. Making these cookies was bad enough for this arachnophobe!
This recipe makes a whopping 8 dozen small (2-inch) cookies. If you get tired of drawing webs and making spiders, you can always make them larger OR just lightly ice some of them with the crispy royal icing.
Happy Halloween!
Lorinda