spiderman cookies

For my son Matthew's 5th birthday last month, he requested everything Spiderman.  (Last year, it was Superman - cookies, cupcakes, and cake!)  So I obliged, and started the birthday baking frenzy by making Spiderman cookies as birthday party favors.

I found a great tutorial over at The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle (love her site!), but made a couple of slight modifications for my cookies: a) I used a different design for the web on Spidey's face, based on a picture of Spiderman I found on the internet, and b) I wanted the web to be raised instead of flat with the rest of the icing, so I piped on the web design only after the red icing had dried (instead of piping the web immediately after the red as Sugarbelle does).

But first, I asked my husband to make me a custom copper cookie cutter in the shape of Spidey's head!

Once the cutter was ready, I make a few batches of my go-to sugar cookie recipe, rolled out the dough, and cut out my shapes.

After baking them for 10-12 minutes at 350 F, I let them cool on wire racks, and then transferred them to airtight containers so that I could decorate them the next day.

When I was ready to decorate the cookies the next day, I made a batch of royal icing (recipe from the same book), and separated the icing into different containers so that I could add coloring.  (I would need black, red, and white).  Then I piped on Spidey's eyes with stiff black icing, and filled the eyes in with white runny icing.

Next I piped an outline of Spidey's head with stiff red icing, and then filled it in with runny red icing.

After letting the cookies dry for a few hours, I was ready to pipe the web design on Spidey's face, using stiff black icing.  I also ended up piping another outline around the eyes to make them pop.

Then I let them dry overnight, before packaging them in cellophane bags tied with raffia.  

The kids loved them!  Especially my 2-year old daughter, who likes to scrape all the cookie icing off with her teeth before eating the actual cookie!

Stay tuned for more Spiderman goodies to come in the next couple of posts!

*** Update: Click here to see the Spiderman birthday cake, and here to see the Spiderman cupcakes that I made as well!