Creepy and crawly, these delicious Halloween treats are sure to be a big hit with your kids!

Spider S’mores

Ingredients:

• Graham crackers
• White frosting
• Marshmallows, large
• Pipe cleaners (black, green, orange, purple)
• Chocolate sprinkles
• Black sprinkles or sanding sugar
• Small jellybeans or fruit flavored Lemon Heads

Directions:

Cut a graham cracker into a 1” by 1” square. This will be your base. With a knife, put a dab of white frosting in the center of the graham cracker to act like glue.  Put one large marshmallow on top of the graham cracker.

Cut pipe cleaners so that they are 3 ½ inches in length. You should have 8 pipe cleaners per spider.  Gently hold the marshmallow with one hand. With the other hand, start on one side of the marshmallow and gently push the pipe cleaner into the marshmallow on a diagonal, going in from the top diagonally into the marshmallow until it hits the graham cracker.

Next, pinch the pipe cleaner about 1/3 up from the marshmallow with one hand. Again with the other hand, push the pipe cleaner down until it touches your work surface.  Then take your index finger, and crimp/bend the pipe cleaner where it touches the work surface so a little foot emerges. Do this 7 more times so that there are 4 legs on each side of the spider. (We wouldn’t want Mr. Arachnid to be anatomically incorrect!)

Once the legs are done, take your knife and spread a line of white frosting right down the center of the marshmallow, a.k.a. the spiders back.  Sprinkle the black sprinkles or sanding sugar over the frosting.  For extra effect, use the chocolate sprinkles over the black sugar to make the spider look extra hairy.

Finally, make two small dabs of frosting on the face or front of the marshmallow with a knife and gently press two small jellybeans or Lemon Heads into the frosting to make eyes. Set the spider aside to “dry” for 20 minutes.

Sugar Mommas’ Note:  We like to test out our recipes on the carpool kids!  We had children around the kitchen table ages 6-12.  They were all giddy about making spiders.  The younger kids needed help with the pipe cleaners, but for the older kids, it was hands off!

Tip: You may want to make two at a time; one to eat immediately and one to play with. The older kids had spiders flying around the kitchen!

Halloween Cookie Squish

Ingredients

• Colored sugar cookies (recipe below)
• Food coloring (black, orange, green)
• Whipped cream or Cool Whip
• White frosting
• Halloween icing decorations (witch, ghost, mummy, bat)
• Halloween sprinkles (colored sugars, Confetti, Nonpareils, decorative mix)

Sugar Mommas’ BASIC Cookie Cutter Sugar Cookies:

¾  c. unsalted butter, (room temperature)
1  c. granulated sugar
2  large eggs
1  tsp. vanilla (or ½ tsp. almond extract)
2 ½ c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Directions:

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a small bowl and set aside. Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Next, mix in the eggs and vanilla.  Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour until well combined.

Add your food coloring (green, black, orange) one or two drops at a time.  On low speed, blend color thoroughly into cookie mixture.  Continue to add coloring, drop by drop, until desired color is reached.  Remove dough and roll into a ball and flatten like a disk. Wrap with plastic and chill dough for at least one hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350º.  Lightly flour a cutting board or work surface.  Roll out the dough 1/8” thick.  Press a 3” cookie round cutter (or desired shape) into the flour.  Cut dough.  Transfer shapes to a parchment-paper lined baking sheet.  Repeat until all of the dough is used. Bake 6-8 minutes until the edges begin to turn golden.  Cool on a wire rack.

CARPOOL CRUNCH: Buy ready-made sugar cookies in the refrigerator section of the market. You may have to use food coloring to get colored Halloween cookies.

CHEAT! Buy Nestle Toll House Pumpkin Pals orange colored sugar cookies (pumpkin faces).  Bring the dough to room temperature.  Take out the sheet of dough (pumpkin faces).  Mash it all together in a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use.  Tell your kids you made orange cookie dough while they were at school.

NOTE: Baked cookies can be stored in an airtight container between layers of parchment paper until ready to use.

How to assemble Cookie Squish:

Put all of your sprinkles into separate bowls and set them aside.

 Take a knife and put a small amount of white frosting on the top center of a sugar cookie.  Put a Halloween icing decoration (sugar lay-ons such as a witch, ghost, mummy, bat, etc) on top of the frosting.  Let it set 5 minutes.

Take two cookies and gently lay them flat side up.  Place a whopping dollop of Cool Whip or any other whipped topping onto one cookie.  Squish the two cookies together. It’s perfectly fine to have whipped topping oozing out of the sides.

Roll the cookies into a dish of sprinkles.  Set aside on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  You can refrigerate these cookies until the topping is firm, or if you can’t wait, take a bite!

Sugar Mommas’ Note:  You can replace the whipped topping with softened ice cream.  If so, place the finished cookies in a Ziploc in the freezer until they set.  We found the kids prefer the whipped topping, as it’s easier to work with, i.e. SQUISH.

Happy Baking! 

The Sugar Mommas