Makes about 8 dozen small (2-inch) cookies. You can make them larger or just lightly frost the rest when you get tired of making spiders!
Ingredients
½ cup butter, slightly softened
½ cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
2 eggs
5½ cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1½ teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup molasses
½ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
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Royal Icing - use your favorite recipe OR try mine:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons meringue powder (I use Wiltons brand, available in the cake decorating section)
¼ cup water
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Dark icing, melted chocolate, dark brown coated candy...whatever you want to use for the spider.
Instructions
In a large bowl (a stand mixer is helpful) beat together the butter, shortening, brown sugar, and white sugar until well combined.
Add eggs and beat until incorporated.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, salt, and baking powder.
In a small bowl combine the molasses and sour cream. Whisk in the baking soda. It will foam up and lighten in color.
At low speed, add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the butter mixture. When most of the flour is mixed in, add ⅓ of the molasses mixture. Repeat twice, scraping the sides of the bowl often. Do not overbeat!
Chill dough for at least 2 hours. Overnight is better.
Heat oven to 375.
Roll out ¼ of the dough at a time, leaving the rest in the refrigerator. Dough should be about ¼-inch thick. Cut into circles and place on parchment covered baking sheet, 1 inch apart.
Bake small circles for 8-9 minutes, larger circles for 9-10 minutes. Touch the top of one cookie gently. If your finger leaves a mark, give them another minute. For crispy cookies, add an extra minute or two.
Cool on a rack.
To make royal icing: Combine powdered sugar, meringue powder, and water. Beat with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes, until thick and fluffy.
Using a pastry bag and small tip (or a heavy zipper bag with the tip cut off) pipe spider webbing onto cool cookies: make a straight line from top to bottom, then side to side. Then two more lines diagonally, like cutting a pie into 8 pieces. Pipe near the outer edge of the cookie, swooping from one line to the next. Do it again closer to the center. That's it!
Hint: You can also coat the entire cookie in a thin layer of icing, let it dry, and then draw the web on with a food color pen like Wilton's FoodWriter.
You can make the spider out of dark chocolate frosting (this is one of those times I'd encourage buying a can of frosting for simplicity), ganache, or by piping melted chocolate for the legs and head, and using a dark brown M&M for the body.
Recipe by The Rowdy Baker at http://www.therowdybaker.com/?p=5045