Bat and Cobweb Cookies Recipe (With Video)

Yield:

It’s time to bake Halloween cookies, and we have the recipe for you—nothing is more frightening or more delicious than these bat and cobweb cookies. Get out your Halloween cookie cutters to make our scary treats.

They start with a gingery spiced dough that bakes up crisp and meltingly good. They’re cloaked in a lemony royal icing with just the right consistency for piping bat eyeballs and spider legs, but the most fun part is drawing the icing to create the spiderwebs. Serve them at your Halloween party or share them with friends who appreciate flying mammals and large arachnids. They also make the spookiest addition to a lunchbox.

Directions

Sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder:

Sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder together into a large bowl; set aside.
Beat butter and sugar:

Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat on medium-high speed until fluffy.
Add spices, then eggs and molasses:

Beat in ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Beat in eggs and molasses.
Add flour mixture:

Reduce speed to low; beat in flour mixture.
Divide dough, flatten into disks, and refrigerate:

Divide dough into 3 equal pieces, and flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Preheat oven; roll out dough and refrigerate:

Preheat oven to 350°F. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough 1/8 inch thick. Transfer dough to a parchment-lined baking sheet, refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
Cut out cookies and refrigerate:

Use bat and cobweb cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Transfer to baking sheets, and refrigerate 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining disks
Bake:

Bake cookies until crisp but not darkened, rotating sheets halfway through, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer sheets to wire racks, let cookies cool completely before decorating with Royal Icing.
Pipe base color on cookies:

Using desired base color (black for bats, white for cobwebs) and a pastry bag fitted with a very small plain round tip (such as #3), pipe icing on each cookie to form an outline. Fill in with more icing, and smooth with an offset spatula. Embellish before icing dries.
Decorate Bats:

Using colored icing, pipe three lines in an arc on the still-wet icing base. For each wing: Drag a wooden skewer across the width in alternating directions. Add eyes after icing has dried.
Decorate Cobwebs:

Pipe a spiral of black icing on the still-wet icing base. Pipe decorative dots on points of cookie. Using a wooden skewer, draw lines from the center outward, connecting the center of the web and the decorative dots. Add spiders to webs after icing has dried.