The March of the Spiders

Question:  What scares you?  
My answer: My kids, on a daily basis, but I bet you saw that coming!

My Freddy and, well, Jason!

What else? Spiders. 

I’m more scared of them than bees.  I think that’s because I can hear bees.  I know to get out of their way before it comes down to feeling them on me.  Spiders on the other hand, sneaky little buggers aren’t they?  I think that’s why so many of my Halloween decorations are spider oriented.  I can’t very well get away with putting likenesses of my kids all over the house to scare people, so spiders it is.  

 Like these, heading up the stairs:

 Now this can’t be good!

Gives me the chills just looking at the picture.  If I ever really had that many spiders in my house I think the only logical recourse would be to sell the house.

So a favorite cookie from last season is the spider, of course.  My husband rips the legs off and eats the rest.  A fitting fate for a spider in my house (yuck, with that picture in mind I probably won’t sleep tonight, but then what is Halloween for anyway?) This cookie is a favorite of my kids, especially my younger son.  And I really don’t have anything to worry about.  My “Living La Vida Loca” singing skeleton is keeping an (evil) eye on them.

Spider Cookies

Spider Cookies

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Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, softened

1 stick margarine, softened

1 ½ cups brown sugar.

2 eggs

1 ¼ cups peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

2 ½ cups flour

¼ cup cornstarch

¾ tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

Mini M&Ms

Rolos, unwrapped

Twizzler peel and eat, cut in thirds and peeled (it'll make 27 "legs" per strand)

Directions:

*NOTE: you can always make the cookies from a store-bought pouch if you’re in a rush.

*Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

*Cream the butter, margarine, brown sugar, eggs, peanut butter and vanilla.

*Mix in the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and baking powder.

*Roll the dough into balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Press down slightly with the heel of your hand.

* Bake for about 12 minutes.

*When they come out of the oven, immediately put a rolo in the center of each cookie. Wait 2 minutes before taking them off of the cookie sheet.

*As soon as the rolo starts to melt, attach the M&Ms to the front of the rolo to look like eyes.

*I know spiders have 8 legs. I use 6 legs per cookie for this recipe, it seems to fit best and still looks like spiders.

*Here's the tricky part: You need to stick the twizzler pieces into the rolo as it’s starting to cool. If you put them in too soon and the rolo is too hot, they’ll slip out.  If you let the rolo harden too much, they won’t go in.  The right time will be approx. 5 mins after they come out of the oven. You’ll need to keep trying with just one twizzler until the rolo is at the right consistency.