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    Home » Recipes » All Recipes

    Halloween Spider Web Cookies

    Published: Jul 30, 2021

    Note: This site is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for the site to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.

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    Easy Halloween Spider Web Cookies

    Originally published September 1, 2020. Updated on 7/30/2021

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    Using just two colours of icing, you can quickly and easily make these fun Spider Web Cookies, for your Halloween Treats spread - Here's how!

    Halloween is coming, time to share my technique for making Easy Spider Web Cookies!

    These cookies are actually really easy to make - most of the time involved is just waiting for the icing to harden!

    While the design is really easy to make, the tutorial is kinda long - I like to make sure to have all the bases covered, to make it go as smoothly as possible for those trying this for the first time. So, let’s get to it!

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    First, a bit of info:

    The Cookie

    You can use any sugar cookie you’d like for these Spider Web Cookies - homemade or store-bought - with a few caveats:

    Store Bought

    If you buy premade cookies, just get something that is nice, flat, and tastes great. No sense decorating cookies that taste bad!

    If you’re buying dough, read the directions carefully before proceeding. Some sugar cookie dough requires additional flour to be added if it’s to be used for rolled sugar cookies.

    Homemade

    Homemade is going to be the best way to go, both for flavour and control over the final product.

    Be sure to use a cookie recipe that is intended specifically for rolled sugar cookies. Some sugar cookies are more of a drop cookie, and will spread. For this kind of sugar cookie decorating, you want a cookie that doesn’t spread, and retains nice, sharp edges with a flat surface.

    I recommend my Sugar Cookie Recipe for Decorating , or my Gluten-Free Sugar Cookie Recipe for those who need a gluten-free option.

    While I generally use an old-school wooden rolling pin and just freehand it, when I’m decorating cookies I like to use a rolling pin with thickness guides on it - it’s the best way to get a perfectly even roll. This is the rolling pin, I use and I LOVE it.

    When the cookies come out of the oven, I like to place a piece of fresh parchment paper on top of the cookies, then put a cookie sheet down on top of it. I LIGHTLY press down to just flatten out any distortions that may have occurred during baking - it really makes for a perfectly flat cookie.

    Note: You CAN decorate cookies that aren’t perfectly flat, but due to the nature of this style of decoration, they’re likely to run off the edges.

    I did a batch from store bought dough that I didn’t use the level rolling pin on, and didn’t flatten with a cookie sheet after making, to demonstrate what that looks like:

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    The Icing

    For these cookies, you’ll want to use a royal icing recipe. It’s an egg-based icing that dries hard - perfect for decorating cookies like this.

    There are two main types of royal icing, it’s up to you which you want to use:

    Traditional Royal Icing

    Traditional Royal Icing is made from raw egg white. It’s generally regarded as safe, but may not be the best option for pregnant people, immunocompromised people, etc.

    Traditional royal icing dries harder than Meringue Powder Royal Icing, and is cheaper to make.

    Meringue Powder Royal Icing

    Meringue Powder Royal Icing is also egg-based, but uses meringue powder instead of raw egg. This makes it a safer option for people who need to worry about such things.

    Meringue Powder Royal icing dries softer than Traditional Royal Icing does, which makes it nicer to eat.. But meringue powder makes this frosting quite a bit more expensive than Traditional Royal Icing

    ****

    Whichever recipe you choose, you’ll have to pay attention to the viscosity AFTER adding the food colouring. I give details on this in the tutorial, though.

    Both of my Royal Icing recipes are at end of this post, by the way.

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    Equipment

    The equipment and supplies required for this are important, but fairly basic:

    Rolling Pin - I recommend using the type linked, to get a perfectly even roll - important, when it comes to decorated cookies!

    Cookie Cutters - You’ll want round cookie cutters, ideally without a scalloped edge. I like to do these 3-4" in diameter - big enough to get a nice design going, without being unwieldy about it.

    Frosting Bags - I like to use disposable bags for this, personally. You’ll want one for each colour you do, plus an extra for the white.

    Couplers and Piping Tips - Using a coupler and tips are totally optional for this. I skip them for the base colours, and only use a coupler and tip for the white frosting. It just gives it a cleaner appearance for that part of the design, than if just cutting the tip of the bag off. I like to use a smallish round tip, usually a 3 or 4.

    Gel Food Colouring - I prefer gel food colouring over paste or liquid colour. It’s super concentrated, available in a ton of colours, and doesn’t screw with the icing viscosity too much. Several brands make gel colour, you can get it on Amazon or at your local cake decorating supply store.

    Toothpicks - Any basic toothpick will work for this - you’re just using it to drag icing outward on the cookie, to create the swags in the design.

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    Spider Web Cookie Technique

    Roll and Bake your Cookies

    1. Following your recipe directions - especially with regard to chilling! - roll and cut out your cookies - I like doing 3-4" diameter rounds for this.

    Take care to ensure the cookies are of VERY even thickness, for the best results. I like to use a rolling pin with thickness guides to help with that - this is the rolling pin I use. LOVE it!

    2. Once the cookies are out of the oven, you can place a piece of parchment over top of the hot cookies and gently press another cookie sheet down - lightly - to flatten any distortion that may have happened during baking. This is optional, but gives a very flat surface to decorate.

    3. Allow cookies to cool to room temperature.

    Stack of round, un-decorated cookies.

    Prepare Your Icing

    1. Prepare your royal icing, following the directions in your chosen recipe (I have my two royal icing recipes at the end of this post!)

    2. Take out about ⅕-1/4 of your royal icing and set it aside, covered. This will be your white, for the spider webs.

    3. Tint your remaining royal icing. You can do it all the same colour, or divide it into little bowls to tint different colours. I like to do a mix of orange, green, purple, and black,

    4. Check the consistency of your icing AFTER tinting. When you use a spoon to pick some of the frosting up and drop it back down into the bowl, you’ll want it to smooth out in between 5-10 seconds. (I like to keep it about 6-7 seconds)

    If your icing smooths out and disappears in less than 5 seconds, it’s too runny. Stir a little more powdered sugar in, until it is in the 5-10 second range.

    If your dropped icing takes more than 10 seconds to disappear back into the rest of it, it’s too thick. Add a little water - a few drops at a time - and stir well. Re-test, and adjust more as needed.

    5. Once your icing is all the proper consistency, transfer it to frosting bags.

    For me, I’ll put the colours into bags just as-is. You can use a coupler and round tip if you’d like, I don’t find it worth the hassle. Squeeze any air pockets out the back end, tie off the bag close to the frosting, and do not cut the tip off til you’re ready to use it.

    For the white frosting, I’ll set the frosting bag up with a coupler inside, trim the end, and affix a smallish round tip - usually about a #3. You want it small enough to be relatively dainty, but wide enough that it leaves a thick enough pipe of white frosting to pull out well. Squeeze out air pockets and tie off the bag.

    6. Cover any frosting not being used, it dries out quickly!

    Decorate Your Spider Web Cookies

    1. If you’re doing multiple background colours, decide how many cookies you’ll do in each one, and divide them out. When you get in the groove, it’s easy to do more than you thought you were doing, and not have cookies left for the other colours!

    2. Grab your first frosting bag, and cut the very end of the tip off. I like to cut enough off as to leave about a ¼" diameter opening.

    3. Carefully pipe your outer circle, inside the outer edge of your first cookie. I like to leave a bit of a border along the outside of the cookie top, as it gives a little room for dragging the icing outward.

    A hand in the foreground is applying orange frosting to a cookie.

    4. Once the outer edge is piped, quickly - but carefully - fill in the center of the cookie with frosting. You don’t have to pipe all of the frosting in, think of it more as “flooding” - you can use the frosting bag to sort of encourage frosting to spread, as you’re adding more.

    A round sugar cookie, iced with shiny orange glaze.

    5. Take your white frosting, and pipe a small circle / blob of frosting in the center.

    6. Pipe concentric circles of white around the center circle. Note that these don’t have to be perfect, they’re going to get distorted in the next step.

    concentric circles of white frosting, piped out on the orange glazed cookie.

    7. Once you have all of your circles piped, use a toothpick to draw the frosting out from the center blob. Place the point of one toothpick into the center blob of frosting, and just gently drag it though the icing, ending at the outer edge of icing.

    A toothpick being used to drag the white circles outward, creating a web effect on the cookie.

    8. Wipe your toothpick off, and repeat. Sometimes I’ll just do lines one after another around the circle, sometimes I’ll do one, then go immediately across from it and pull the center out in the opposite direction. Do what feels right to you!

    9. Once all the lines are pulled out, set the cookie aside to dry, and repeat on your remaining cookies.

    A round sugar cookie frosted orange, with a white spiderweb design.

    Wait!

    Allow the cookies to dry for at least 6 hours, ideally overnight.

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    And you’re done! Be sure to take some pics of your work! If you instagram it, be sure to tag me - @CelebrationGenerationCA - or post it to My Facebook Page - so I can cheer you on!

    If you're still considering ideas for Halloween, be sure to check out my:

    Bloody Eyeball Halloween Punch
    Halloween Pavlova
    Halloween Themed Shooters
    Easy Halloween Bat Cupcakes
    Halloween Spider Web Cupcakes
    How to Carve a Halloween Pumpkin Like a Pro
    3D Halloween Bat Cupcakes

    Also, be sure to subscribe to my free monthly email newsletter, so you never miss out on any of my nonsense.

    Well, the published nonsense, anyway!

    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    A white stand mixer is pictured against a black background. It's tilted up, showing the meringue in the bowl and on the whisk attachment.
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Saved!
    5 from 1 vote

    Traditional Royal Icing

    Traditional Royal Icing uses raw egg white and lemon juice. It's generally considered safe, but is best avoided for pregnant people, small children, and immunocompromized people.
    Prep Time5 mins
    Total Time5 mins
    Course: Dessert
    Cuisine: British
    Servings: 20 or more cookies worth
    Calories: 97kcal
    Author: Marie Porter

    Ingredients

    • 4 Large Egg Whites
    • 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice
    • 4-6 cups Confectioners / Icing / Powdered Sugar

    Instructions

    • In clean stand mixer, whip egg whites until foamy.
    • Add lemon juice, whip for another minute.
    • Slowly add powdered sugar until cookie icing reaches desired consistency. You will want a fairly thick frosting – but still smooth and workable – for piping details and borders.*
    • If you're not using it immediately, transfer to an airtight container, cover surface with plastic wrap, and secure lid tightly.
    • Re-whip before use.

    Notes

    * A good way to figure out if your frosting is the right consistency is to pull a spoon through the middle of the frosting bowl.
    – If the frosting settles out in less than 5 seconds, it’s too runny. Add a little more powdered sugar.
    – If the frosting settles out in 5-10 seconds, you’re good to go!
    – If the frosting takes longer than 10 seconds to settle, it’s too thick. Add a little water or lemon juice and try again.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 97kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 10mg | Potassium: 10mg | Sugar: 24g | Vitamin C: 1mg | Iron: 1mg
    A white stand mixer is pictured against a black background. It's tilted up, showing the meringue in the bowl and on the whisk attachment.
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Saved!
    5 from 1 vote

    Meringue Powder Royal Icing

    This royal icing recipe uses meringue powder rather than raw egg whites, making it a safer option for pregnant people, young children, and the elderly or immune compromised.
    Prep Time5 mins
    Total Time5 mins
    Course: Dessert
    Cuisine: American
    Servings: 20 or more cookies worth
    Calories: 93kcal
    Author: Marie Porter

    Ingredients

    • 4 Cup Icing Sugar
    • ¼ cup Meringue Powder
    • ⅓ cup lukewarm water ideal or large mixing bowl (to beat with an electric hand mixer)

    Instructions

    • Combine icing sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of a stand mixer - ideal - or large mixing bowl (to beat with an electric hand mixer)
    • Add water, mix on low speed until combined.
    • Turn speed up to high, beat for a couple minutes until thick, smooth, and glossy.
    • Check the frosting for consistency, adjust as needed for your intended usage. You will want a fairly thick frosting – but still smooth and workable – for piping details and borders.*
    • If you're not using it immediately, transfer to an airtight container, cover surface with plastic wrap, and secure lid tightly.
    • Re-whip before use.

    Notes

    * A good way to figure out if your frosting is the right consistency is to pull a spoon through the middle of the frosting bowl.
    – If the frosting settles out in less than 5 seconds, it’s too runny. Add a little more powdered sugar.
    – If the frosting settles out in 5-10 seconds, you’re good to go!
    – If the frosting takes longer than 10 seconds to settle, it’s too thick. Add a little water or lemon juice and try again.

    Nutrition

    Calories: 93kcal | Carbohydrates: 24g | Sodium: 1mg | Sugar: 23g | Iron: 1mg
    Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Saved!
    5 from 1 vote

    Halloween Spider Web Cookies

    Using just two colours of icing, you can quickly and easily make these fun Spider Web Sugar Cookie, for your Halloween Treats spread!
    Prep Time15 mins
    Cook Time20 mins
    Resting time6 hrs
    Total Time6 hrs 35 mins
    Course: Dessert, Snack
    Author: Marie Porter
    Cost: $10

    Equipment

    Rolling Pin
    Round Cookie Cutters
    Frosting Bags
    Cake Decorating Set (Optional)
    Gel Food Colouring
    Toothpicks

    Ingredients

    • 1 Batch Sugar Cookies or
    • 1 Batch Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies
    • 1 Batch Traditional Royal Icing or
    • 1 Batch Meringue Powder Royal Icing

    Instructions

    Roll and bake your cookies.

    • Following your recipe directions - especially with regard to chilling! - roll and cut out your cookies - I like doing 3-4" diameter rounds for this.
    • Take care to ensure the cookies are of VERY even thickness, for the best results. I like to use a rolling pin with thickness guides to help with that.
    • Once the cookies are out of the oven, you can place a piece of parchment over top of the hot cookies and gently press another cookie sheet down - lightly - to flatten any distortion that may have happened during baking. This is optional, but gives a very flat surface to decorate.
    • Allow cookies to cool to room temperature.
      Stack of round, un-decorated cookies

    Prepare Your Icing

    • Prepare your royal icing, following the directions in your chosen recipe.
    • Take out about ⅕-1/4 of your royal icing. This will be your white, for the spider webs.
    • Tint your remaining royal icing. You can do it all the same colour, or divide it into little bowls to tint different colours. I like to do a mix of orange, green, purple, and black,
    • Check the consistency of your icing AFTER tinting. When you use a spoon to pick some of the frosting up and drop it back down into the bowl, you’ll want it to smooth out in between 5-10 seconds. (I like to keep it about 6-7 seconds)
    • If your icing smooths out and disappears in less than 5 seconds, it’s too runny. Stir a little more powdered sugar in, until it is in the 5-10 second range.
    • If your dropped icing takes more than 10 seconds to disappear back into the rest of it, it’s too thick. Add a little water - a few drops at a time - and stir well. Re test, and adjust more as needed.
    • Once your icing is all the proper consistency, transfer it to frosting bags.
    • For me, I’ll put the colours into bags just as-is. You can use a coupler and round tip if you’d like, I don’t find it worth the hassle. Squeeze any air pockets out the back end, tie off the bag close to the frosting, and do not cut the tip off til you’re ready to use it.
    • For the white frosting, I’ll set the frosting bag up with a coupler inside, trim the end, and affix a smallish round tip - usually about a #3. You want it small enough to be relatively dainty, but wide enough that it leaves a thick enough pipe of white frosting to pull out well. Squeeze out air pockets and tie off the bag.
    • Cover any frosting not being used, it dries out quickly!

    Decorate your cookies

    • If you’re doing multiple background colours, decide how many cookies you’ll do in each one, and divide them out. When you get in the groove, it’s easy to do more than you thought you were doing, and not have cookies left for the other colours!
    • Grab your first frosting bag, and cut the very end of the tip off. I like to cut enough off as to leave about a ¼" diameter opening.
    • Carefully pipe your outer circle, inside the outer edge of your first cookie. I like to leave a it of a border along the outside of the cookie top, as it gives a little room for dragging the icing outward.
      A hand in the foreground is applying orange frosting to a cookie
    • Once the outer edge is piped, quickly - but carefully - fill in the center of the cookie with frosting.
      You don’t have to pipe all of the frosting in, think of it more as “flooding” - you can use the frosting bag to sort of encourage frosting to spread, as you’d adding more,
      A single round cookie, with orange frosting covering the top.
    • Take your white frosting, and pipe a small circle / blob of frosting in the center.
    • Pipe concentric circles of white around the center circle. Note that these don’t have to be perfect, they’re going to get distorted in the next step.
      A single round cookie, with orange frosting covering the top. There are concentric circles of white frosting piped over the orange.
    • Once you have all of your circles piped, use a toothpick to draw the frosting out from the center blob.
      Place the point of one toothpick into the center blob of frosting, and just gently drag it though the icing, ending at the outer edge of icing.
      A hand is using a tooth pick to draw the frosting outward from the center of the cookie.
    • Wipe your toothpick off, and repeat.
      Sometimes I’ll just do lines one after another around the circle, sometimes I’ll do one, then go immediately across from it and pull the center out in the opposite direction.
      Do what feels right to you!
      A hand is using a tooth pick to draw the frosting outward from the center of the cookie.
    • Once all the lines are pulled out, set the cookie aside to dry, and repeat on your remaining cookies.
      A single cookie with orange and white frosting on top. The white frosting forms a stylized spider web design.

    Wait!

    • Allow the cookies to dry for at least 6 hours, ideally overnight.
    • ... And you’re done! Take some pics of your work, and share it with us online!
      Close up view of a plate of round halloween cookies, frosted with orange, lime green, purple, and black individually. Each has a white stylized spider web design in the coloured background.

    Related posts:

    A small, faceted glass plate with several highly textured round cookies on top. Coconut, butterscotch chips, nuts, and raisins are visible throughout. Sweet Ecstasy Cookies A white plate is stacked with Confetti Bars - rainbow marshmallows held together with butterscotch fudge. Confetti Bars Recipe Close up view of a plate of 3 layered bars. The bottom layer looks like a brownie, the middle is a thick pink buttercream with bits of cherry visible, and the top is a smooth chocolate ganache. Maraschino Cherry Nanaimo Bars A plate of Creme de Menthe Nanaimo Bars - a 3 layered bar. The top and bottom layers are chocolate, and the middle layer is a green buttercream. They are on a green plate, garnished with a sprig of fresh mint. Creme de Menthe Nanaimo Bars
    « Air Fryer Cream Cheese Wontons
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