Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies

These Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies use my standard cookie mixture - it's tried and tested and works every time. 

These are fun to make with the children and the below will make about 21-22 cookies, so if you're like me you can leave a batch for the kids to decorate while you do the rest and not worry about the mess. 

They taste great, look great and are just a good activity to do with the children around Halloween.

Halloween Mummy and Spider Cookies

Here's how:

• 150g salted butter, room temperature
• 85g light brown sugar
• 85g granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 225g plain flour
• 100g milk chocolate chips
• 100g white chocolate chips 
• 1 tbsp milk (may not need)

To decorate Mummy Cookies:

• 150g white chocolate
• Edible candy eyes

To decorate Spider Cookies:

• 6-8 giant chocolate buttons
• Edible candy eyes
• Red icing pen

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and line 3 baking trays with greaseproof paper. 

In a large mixing bowl, place the weighed out butter and the brown and white sugar and cream together with a wooden spoon. Mix it well until it's completely combined. 

Now crack in 1 egg and add the vanilla extract and mix in, then add the plain flour and baking powder and mix until the batter resembles cookie dough and has some movement still to it. If it's a bit too thick add a drop of milk at a time and stir until you're happy with the texture. 

Now add the chocolate chips - I always struggle to find white chocolate chips so instead but a 100g bar and chop into chunks. Mix them in well.

Use a teaspoon at a time to place a ball of the cookie dough onto the tray - there's no need to press down, this will happen naturally in the oven. Leave plenty of space between the cookies - I only put 5-6 on each tray and do batches in the oven. 

Bake for exactly 9 minutes and starting to brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 2-3 minutes in the tray before carefully using a fish slice to remove from the trays and place gently on a wire cooling rack or board to cool. 

Repeat the process until all of the cookies are baked. 

The Spider Cookies:

With the cookies that have just come out of the oven and are piping hot, place a giant chocolate button onto each and gently press down and leave to melt a little. Once this has happened use a cocktail stick or something similar to use the melted chocolate and draw 8 little legs using the melted chocolate. Pop a pair of edible eyes on and draw on a smile with a red icing pen and leave to cool.

Halloween Spider Cookies

The Mummy Cookies:

Break up the white chocolate and place into a heat-proof bowl and place over some just boiled water in a pan on a low heat. Use a wooden spoon to mix the chocolate until it is runny and fully melted. 

Place the cookies onto a chopping board or one of the baking trays with the greaseproof paper to prevent lots of mess. Now take a spoonful of melted white chocolate and simply drizzle over each cookie to resemble the bandages of a mummy. Place the edible onto the cookies, using the melted chocolate as a glue and leave to cool.

Halloween Mummy Cookies

Below are a few more Halloween ideas to make with children:

• Halloween Ghost Cupcakes
• Halloween Chocolate Bark
• Pumpkin Mac 'N' Cheese
• Halloween Chocolate Cupcakes
• Spooky Halloween Chocolate Spider Cookies
• Halloween Mummified Sausage Rolls

Cooking with Kids: Spooky Halloween Chocolate Spider Biscuits

This is a really fun, quick and easy way of getting the kids involved in making some Halloween treats at home.

I use Oreo’s as they’re sturdier than single-layer biscuits, but you could adapt this to whatever round biscuits you have in the house. I also use liquorice sticks as the spider legs, but this could just as easily be cola laces. Equally for eyes, I’ve used mini marshmallows with a little dot of melted chocolate, and for the lips some red jelly lips, but these could both be icing pens otherwise. I serve on a bed of spooky sweets, white chocolate mice, jelly snakes etc.

The below makes 8 spiders.

Here’s how:

• 1 pack original Oreo's
• 200g milk chocolate
• Pack of liquorice sticks
• 16 mini marshmallows
• Red jelly lips sweets 

Firstly cut the liquorice sticks down to quarter size, ensuring you have enough for 8 little legs, per spider - you’ll have 8 in total as a normal pack has 16 biscuits. Set aside.

Place a sheet of baking paper on the side to capture any mess of the assembly of the spiders.

Break up the chocolate into a china bowl and melt over a pan of recently boiled water. Use a wooden spoon to move the chocolate around and encourage it to melt.

Now you need to work fairly quickly at this point. Once fully melted, use a pastry brush to cover one side of 8 of the cookies with the melted chocolate. Bow rearrange the eight spider legs accordingly so they are dangling down, and one part is just pressed down into the soft, melted chocolate; this will act as your glue. Now, take one of the other Oreo's (the ones that were set aside and haven’t had chocolate on them) directly on top of the chocolate coating and legs and press down firmly.

Now brush on some more chocolate on top if the spiders ‘faces’ and assemble the faces. Position the two marshmallow eyes accordingly and press down so they stick into the chocolate, and then do the same with the sweetie lips.

Finally use a skewer or a coctail stick, dip the end into the remaining melted chocolate and touch the middle of the marshmallow eyes for pupils.

Leave to set for half hour then arrange onto spooky sweets, or however you are serving. Enjoy!

Some other ideas for keeping the kids occupied with a Halloween theme can be found below:


Making Mummified Sausage Rolls
Making these simple Chocolate Halloween Iced Biscuits
Make Halloween cards

Easy Chocolate Halloween Biscuits - Cooking with Kids

These biscuits are super simple to make, a fun activity for half term next week in the lead up to Halloween or for any spooky gathering. 

I grabbed a pack of cookie cutters from Poundstretchers which had shapes such as bats, Frankenstein's Monster faces, gravestones, pumpkins and cats, but you could apple the same method to any biscuit. If you only have round cooking cutters, just ice and then write 'RIP' on them or grab some of the Haribo sweeties like I have in the pictures with things such as spiders, bones, skeletons and the like and apply them. The main thing is that this is a really fun thing to do for Halloween with the children.

Bridget absolutely loves cooking and particularly baking anything sweet - this was the first time Beatrice (8 months) got involved in baking too, and enjoyed a little mix with the big spoon plus trying to scoop out the raw biscuit mixture! 

Easy Chocolate Halloween Biscuits

Here's how:

• 125g butter
• 110g caster sugar
• 250g plain flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• Flour to dust the worktop and rolling pin

To ice:

• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• Few drops of water
• Food colouring (I just used red to make orange for the pumpkins)
• Red icing pen
• Selection of spooky sweeties (I used Haribo)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, then grease and line the baking trays with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the egg, butter and sugar together with the vanilla extract until combined. Slowly sift in the flour and cocoa, stirring through as you go. Add the milk if the mixture is a little dry. Once satisfied with the dough, cover with cling film and place into the fridge for 20-30 minutes.

Remove biscuit dough from the fridge. Lightly dust your worktop space with flour, and rub flour up and down your rolling pin, then use your hands to pull off a small section at a time, and roll out into a thin dough, about 1cm thick. If it's too thin, it'll be very difficult to handle, unless your a very deft baker!

Now use your cookie cutter, to cut out the shapes that you wish to use, and place each shape onto the baking shape. They can be placed close together, but not touching. They shouldn't expand too much in the oven.

Repeat the process until all the dough has been used and the shapes placed onto the baking sheets. Now place into the hot oven and bake for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to completely cool on the baking sheets before moving.

To ice, you can do so however you wish, and decorate in any manner, we used jelly lips, teeth and fangs for the mouths of the bats and Frankensteins, raisins for eyes, I cut up a dried apricot for the ghost mouths, and once iced, we used spiders, bones and skeleton jellies to make the biscuits as spooky as possible. We wrote RIP on the gravestones in a red icing pen.

To make up relevant icing, you want it quite thick, so take 3 tbsp icing sugar, and just a drop or two of cold water, and stir through, you want it runny enough to pour or brush onto the biscuits, but thick enough to not set 'watery' or opaque. We just used simple plain icing sugar for most of the icing, then added a little drop of red food colouring to make an orange hued icing for the pumpkins. 

Experiment though, and most importantly let the kids enjoy this activity - it doesn't matter if the biscuits are the most beautifully decorated, it only matters that you all enjoyed making them together!

Beatrice's first baking experience

If you're having a Halloween get together or tea party, or just doing a fun and spooky dinner for the kids on 31st October, these easy peasy Mummified Sausage Rolls are a winner too.