Spooky Spiders

This is one of my favourite times of the year, a chance to decorate the house and enjoy the fun of Halloween. I shared some ghoulish recipes last year, so feel free to scroll back and have a look, but this year I thought I would kick things of with a simple, yet effective, fun spooky spider idea.

I didn’t have a biscuit cutter for this, so I made my own template using a piece of card and cut around it with a knife. I know spiders have eight legs, but as I was cutting these out by hand, I opted for 6 to make things simpler!

To decorate them, I rolled out the fondant icing and painted the faces with a mixture of black and purple natural food colourings which you will find in most supermarkets.

Spooky Spider Biscuits

For the chocolate biscuits

170g unsalted butter

120g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

25g cornflour

30g cocoa powder

1 large free ranged egg

250g plain flour

For the decoration

250g white fondant icing

black natural food colouring gel

purple natural food colouring gel

icing sugar for dusting

In a mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar, vanilla and salt until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat together until just combined.
Sift in the cocoa, flour and cornflour and mix slowly together, stopping as soon as the mixture comes together into a dough.
Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180ºC and line a baking sheet with baking parchment
Roll the chilled dough out on a lightly floured work surface to the thickness of a £1 coin. Using your biscuit cutter or card template, cut out your biscuit shapes and lay them on the baking sheet, spacing each 3cm apart.
Place the baking sheet and back into the fridge for 10 minutes to allow the biscuit shapes to chill again - this will help to stop them spreading when they are in the oven.
After they have chilled, place the baking sheet into the oven and bake the biscuits for 9-12 minutes.
Remove from the oven and using a skewer or chopstick, wiggle a little hole into the tops, about half a cm from the edge - this it where you will hang them from. Allow to cool on the baking sheet, before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Whilst the biscuits are cooling, you can paint their cute little faces! Roll out the fondant icing on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Use the spider template to measure the size of the faces, then cut around them. Using a small amount of water on the back of the fondant cut out, ‘stick’ the faces onto the, now cold, spider biscuits. Press down evenly to ensure the fondant adheres and then using the skewer or chopstick again, wiggle a hole through the fondant to match the hole in the biscuit so you can thread them up once painted
Once all the faces are stuck on, use a small amount of black food colouring mixed with water to paint grey faces on. I went a little heavier with the black around the edges to give them a spooky feel. Paint on any funny faces you would like, then leave to dry, this will take a couple of hours.
Finally, thread them though with some embroidery thread and hang them around the house as a spooky treat!