These chocolate chip Spider Cookies are are so fun and easy to make with pantry ingredients and no special equipment or skills required. They’re the funnest cool and creepy Halloween cookies!
Looking for more Halloween recipes? Try these Spider Cupcakes, Mini Halloween Pizzas, Graveyard Halloween Brownies, or Roasted Pumpkin Seeds!
Why I love this Halloween treat:
- No Special Equipment – Anyone can now make a cool, spooky, Halloween treat without ANY special equipment or advanced skill!
- Crowd Pleaser – Everyone loves a classic chocolate chip cookie, so these spooky treats are always a party favorite when it comes to Halloween cookies!
- Quick – Short on time? These cookies will be done and ready for Halloween festivities in less than 30 minutes!
How to make Spider Cookies:
Make Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Scoop cookie dough into balls and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake at 325°F for 10-12 minutes.
Top with a few Chocolate Chips: Remove from oven and place 3-4 chocolate chips on each cookie, point side up.
Melt Chocolate Chips: Melt remaining chocolate chips in in a double boiler or in a microwave safe bowl on low power, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted.
Make Spider Design: Pour melted chocolate in a small ziplock bag and make a very small hole in one corner. Draw spider legs on the sides of the chocolate chips to make Spider Cookies.
Make Ahead and Freezing Instructions:
To Make Ahead: Store leftover Halloween cookies in an airtight container for 1-2 days, or freeze for another day for maximum freshness.
To Freeze: Place cooled cookies in an air-tight freezer safe container or bag in the freezer for up to 3 months.
More Halloween Desserts:
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Recipe
Spider Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 12 Tablespoons butter , melted and cooled until warm
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips , divided
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a medium bowl mix together flour, salt, and baking soda.
- In a separate large mixing bowl beat the butter and sugars together with an electric mixer until well blended. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Gently stir in ¾ cup chocolate chips. The dough will be soft.
- Scoop dough into balls and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Remove from oven and place 3-4 chocolate chips into the tops of each cookie, point side up.
- Add remaining chocolate chips to a microwave safe bowl and microwave, on low power, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted.
- Spoon the melted chocolate into a ziplock bag. Use scissors to cut the smallest slit from one of the corners (you want the hole to be very small to make your spider legs). Squeeze the melted chocolate through the small hole, next to the chocolate chips on top of the cookie, to make 8 spider legs.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?
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I originally shared this recipe October 2015. Updated October 2022.
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I love recipes made from scratch!! They taste homey and who doesn’t love comfort kinda food!!! Going to try your German pancake recipe looks like you have a lot of good ones glad I’m following you Laura❤️
So disappointed that the whole mixture melted into one ginormous cookie that took 30 mlns to cook!! I had converted the American weights into grams but maybe something got lost in translation. Hope the broken bits taste good!
I think something must have went wrong with the conversion! So sorry to hear this and I hope you were able to enjoy some of it!
Such a cute and brilliant idea! My grandson and I had fun making these. Everybody was surprised and spooked to discover spiders on their chocolate chip cookies!!
Loved this recipe!! The cookies were delicious !! I did half the amount of chocolate chips as it was way too much for me and they still had loads in them !! I did cook.for an extra 2 mins also. I got 15 large cookies out of this so I used Maltesers for the body of the ‘parent’ spiders and chcolate chips.for ‘babies’!! Piped legs as per instructions !!
can i just add chocolate chips before i bake the cookies?
i liked to try the recipe but scared to add chocolate chips afterwards.
Sure, they just wont poke out as much, to make the “body” of the spider.
I made these for Halloween and got raves on the cookie itself. If I make them for Christmas without the spiders do I just add 2 cups of chocolate chips to the batter?
Im so happy to hear that! Yes, this recipe is just adapted from my regular chocolate chip cookie recipe: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/perfect-chocolate-chip-cookies/
We loved this recipe. The cookies came out perfect and I put the last batch in the fridge to get an extra puff out of them. We did bake them a little longer, by perhaps two minutes, but they were absolutely delicious.
I am making these right now and they are not rising or cooking. I think there should be some baking powder in the recipe as well. Needless to say, I wasted a LOT of butter, chocolate chips and dry goods trying to make these and it basically turned into a cookie cake that was crisp on the outside and uncooked on the inside.
Hi Cindy,
I’m sorry for your troubles! The recipe has baking soda (baking powder has soda in it-it’s like a less powerful version of baking soda). I can’t be exactly sure what went wrong but am wondering if perhaps your baking soda isn’t fresh?
I made these yesterday. After ten minutes is a 325 degree oven they weren’t even close to being done. The temperature seems a little low so I had to turn it up to 375 which most of my cookie recipes require. I’m wondering if the 325 degrees is a typo.
I used the chocolate cake frosting in a tube for the legs because it was so much easier. It worked out fine. The cookies are cute and I know my grandson will love them.
I had the same issue at baked at 350. They are soooo yummy
I made these today and they were horrible. They spread out very thin on the cookie sheet and never rose. I agree with Joanna above that the temp seemed off, however I also increased the temp to 375 and it still didn’t help much. This recipe is trying to mimic the original toll house recipe but the butter and flour mixture is different. I believe that’s the issue, as my cookies were very greasy and not edible. I not only wasted an afternoon, but also a TON of ingredients which are not cheap. Pretty frustrated to say the least. Picture looks really cute, but that’s about it.
Hi Sally,
This is a Cooks Illustrated Recipe that was well test. You can read details here.
I’m sorry you had trouble with the recipe. The post gives explanations that may help explain why they didn’t turn out!
What a great idea! Can’t wait to make these this season!
I’m confused by the butter–is it 12 Tbsp PLUS 1.5 sticks? Or use 12 Tbsp (which equals 1.5 sticks)?
Sorry for the confusion. It is just 12 tablespoons of butter
I love the spider cookies, too cute!
These are so nice! Really cute with the spider design 🙂 I’ll definitely try this out, hopefully I can get them as neat as yours! 😀
so, you can’t just melt chocolate chips in the microwave! After melting problems looked it up and it is much more complicated than just putting it in the microwave – also – should say that you want the medium scoop to spread out the spiders –
very disappointed – thiis isn’t going to work for me – anyone interested should do a trial run
Hi Susan, I melt my chocolate chips in the microwave 95% of the time. It’s very easy, you just need your microwave on half power and to stir it often so it doesn’t sieze. If you cook it to hot or too fast, you would encounter problems, but as long as the chocolate your’re melting is good quality and you stir often, on low power, there shouldn’t be a problem.
I melt chocolate in the microwave all the time. Just go low and slow.
Love these cookies.
I don’t like adding extra sugary and artificially colored decorations.
Oh my goodness! These are adorable! Do you know about how many cookies this recipe would yield? I’m going to try these for a large Halloween party so I’d need maybe 40-50? If I doubled it do you think that would be good enough?
Thanks for such a cute idea! So glad I came across it!!
Hi Courtney, this recipe will make about 2 dozen regular size cookies, so you could be perfect to double it! Have fun!
Those are stinking adorable! I LOVE your website.
Thanks so much Jenny! What a nice compliment 🙂
These are so cute. I’m sure they would make anyone look twice.
What a great twist for Halloween for cookies.