SCARY SPIDER COOKIES FOR HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween everyone! The most terrifying celebration of the year is approaching so today we have decided to hang up the decorations at home. Where I live, Halloween is well celebrated because this festivity has its origins in the celtic civilization. One of these tribes settled once in the Spanish region in which I was born and in where I live nowadays: Galicia.

The celtics expanded through Europe and, besides us, the most important Celtic nations are Ireland, Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man as well as northern Portugal and the Spanish region of Asturias. The celtics celebrated Samain the 31st October to commemorate the end of the harvest season. They also thought the border between the living and the dead disappeared during this day and the spirits could return to the world of the living. They dressed up with masks and costumes to drove them away. These celtic habits crossed the Atlantic ocean until North America thanks to the Irish exodus in the XIX century.

So wherever you are and whatever you celebrate I wish you once more happy Halloween or happy Samain with this sweet recipe you could bake the last day of this month!

INGREDIENTS for 12 cookies

88 gr pastry flour (⅔ cup)

80 gr peanut butter (⅓ cup)

65 gr dark chocolate for melting (½ cup)

57 gr unsalted butter at room temperature (¼ cup)

48 gr granulated white sugar (2 tbsp)

35 gr brown sugar (1 ½ cups)

24 sugar eyes (1 cm / 0.40 inches in diameter)

12 Lindor ball chocolates or any other chocolate truffles but round

1 large egg at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

PREPARATION

Let’s start preheating the oven to 180ºC (356ºF). In a bowl sift the flour and baking powder. Then, add the brown and white sugar, and the salt. Set aside. In another bowl beat the butter with electric beaters until creamy. Add the peanut butter and mix for another two minutes. Then add the beaten egg and the vanilla extract, and combine well. Gradually beat in the flour mixture.

Drop the dough on a baking tray with oven paper in round balls, each one should weight 30 gr (1 oz). Make sure there is some space around them, because they will spread out once in the oven. Bake for 8 minutes.

Meanwhile we are going to prepare the spider legs with the dark chocolate. Melt it in a bowl and remove it carefully. Then, remove the baking tray from the oven and make a hole in the middle of each cookie with the narrow part of a pestle. Bake for another 3 minutes.

Now place one Lindor chocolate ball in each hole. It should stick, because the cookie is so hot. Then, pour the melted chocolate inside a pastry bag with a small nozzle and make 8 legs on each cookie. Let them cool and hereafter put a small chocolate drop in the back of the sugar eyes in order to stick them to the Lindor chocolate balls.