Spider Cookies
Servings: 36 cookies
Calories: 148cal
Ingredients
Peanut Butter Cookies
- ½ cup shortening or butter flavored shortening
- ¾ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 ¼ cups light brown sugar firmly packed
- 3 Tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 large egg
- 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
Decorations
- black decorator gel or cookie icing. see notes below
- 36 mini Reese's peanut butter cups unwrapped
- 72 candy eyeballs
Instructions
To Make the Cookies
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Combine shortening, peanut butter, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.
- Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended.
- Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls (using a cookie scoop works great) 2 inches apart onto an ungreased baking sheet. Flatten slightly in a crisscross pattern with the tines of the fork. You can optionally skip the fork marks in the cookie if desired.
- Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, or until set and just beginning to brown. DO NOT OVERBAKE. Cool for 2 minutes on a baking sheet. Remove cookies to racks to cool completely.
- After the cookies are fully cooled, you can begin decorating.
To Decorate
- "Glue" the mini Reese's cup to the top of the cookies with a small amount of decorator gel. Don't add too much or it may overflow when you press it onto the cookie.
- Dot the back side of the candy eyeballs with black decorator gel and stick onto the bottom of the Reese's cup.
- Gently squeeze the black decorator gel starting at the base of the Reese's cup to create the legs. Pipe 4 legs on both sides of the Reese's cup for a total of 8 legs.
- Allow the decorated cookies to set for an hour or two. Black decorator gel can take a while to set so be careful when handling!
Notes
- When you bake the cookies, start with a small batch and check them after 7 minutes. Mine are always perfect at 8 minutes. They will look a little underdone and puffy. Once you remove them from the oven and let them cool a bit, they will relax and settle.
- If preferred, you can skip the step of creating fork marks. Underbake the cookies by a minute or so for a chewy cookie. You can also substitute with cake mix peanut butter cookies! Sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and pumpkin cookies would be great substitutes as well.
- Decorator gel can take a while to set so try not to move the cookies around too much at first or you'll risk the Reese's cup or candy eyes sliding off! In place of the decorator gel, you can easily use cookie icing or melt semi-sweet chocolate chips, baking chocolate, almond bark, or candy melts and get the same results.
- Do not stick the Reese's cup onto hot cookies, it will cause them to melt.
- Store the spider cookies in an air-tight container or large ziptop bag in a single layer kept at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 148cal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 6mg | Sodium: 124mg | Potassium: 75mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 13IU | Vitamin C: 0.02mg | Calcium: 18mg | Iron: 1mg
