Yes, I am well aware that it is kind of early for Halloween Cookies, but I just loved this idea and had to go ahead and do it. Filled cookies are not really a new thing, but Steve has this Halloween obsession, and he is not into cute stuff. He likes scary and yucky stuff, so I had been trying to come up with a cookie for him when I came up with these oozy spider cookies. They are perfect for grossing out…umm surprising the kids. When they bite into one of these spiders they are met with green slimy spider guts.
These are really just chocolate shortbread cookies. They are three layers thick. I cut them out with a two inch round cookie cutter. and then used a one inch round cutter to cut the center out of one third of the cookies, so would have a place to put the green slime. I then stuck the bottom layer together with the middle layer using chocolate candy melts. You can use regular chocolate too, but the candy melts set up well and quickly. Then, I painted the area to hold the slime with more chocolate to keep the cookie from getting soggy and filled it with slime. I then attached licorice legs and the top layer. After this set, which only took a few minutes, I went around the edges with more chocolate to fill in the gaps and attached the eyes with even more chocolate. Chocolate is good, right? That is a lot, I know. Don’t worry, most of the steps have photos below.
I used Wilton products for the green slime and the eyes, but if you are really ambitious, you could make those too.
Oozy Spider Cookies
Yield 16
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature (Use the best quality butter you can find. It really does make a difference.)
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 3/4 cup cocoa
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1/4 teaspoon black gel food coloring
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon. salt
- 12 ounces chocolate candy melts, melted according to package directions (Do not melt until you are ready to assemble the cookies.
- 1 3.5 ounce tube of edible green slime or green icing
- 32 candy eyes
- 1/2 pound string licorice, cut into 2-3 inch lengths Note: I was unable to find this locally and had to order it.
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
- Line two large cookie sheets with parchment.
- Cream together butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
- Add milk, food coloring, cocoa, flour, and salt, and mix until well combined and the dough sticks together well. Roll onto a lightly floured surface until about 1/4 inch thick.
- Cut the dough with your larger cookie cutter. Using the smaller cookie cutter, cut out the center of one third of the cookies. You should have 32 whole round cookies and 16 cookies with the center cut out.
- Place on the prepared cookie sheets. You may have to lift the cookies with a spatula to place on the cookie sheet.
- Bake for about 15 minutes or until firm to the touch. I baked mine one sheet at a time, but you could probably bake them on two racks and switch them half way through baking.
- Cool completely before assembling.
- To assemble, place melted chocolate into a zip lock bag or piping bag. Snip off a tiny part of one corner of the bag, so that you can pipe the chocolate out.
- Pipe a line of chocolate around the base cookies not quite to the edge. Top with the centerless cookies.
- Pipe a dollop of chocolate in the center of each cookie and spread it around the inside and up the edges. This keeps the slime from making the cookie soggy.
- After the chocolate sets, squeeze green slime into the cavity created by the two cookies.
- Pipe more chocolate on both sides of the centerless cookie and lay the licorice legs over the chocolate.
- Add another ring on chocolate going all the way around the centerless cookie and over the licorice.
- Gently press top cookie onto the chocolate.
- Allow to cool until set.
- Because of the thickness of the licorice there will now be some open space between the top two cookies, so pipe some chocolate in to fill the holes.
- Pipe two dots of chocolate on top of each spider and attach eyes.
Courses Dessert
This is so cool. Love the green slime
Thank you so much! They were a lot of fun to make!
Peanut butter would also make a great gooey center instead of green slime.
Peanut butter does sound good and would be delicious with the dark chocolate cookies. I was kind of going for the silly kid eewww effect with these though.
Love these! So cute and clever!
Thank you!