I’ve seen the picture of spider chip cookies around quite a bit, so I had to try it. The Spousal Unit was on the computer at the time, so I went with my memory–that you simply pulled the warm chocolate out from the chip with a toothpick to form legs.
I didn’t feel like baking from scratch, so I grabbed some Toll House dough. I baked them according to instructions, and brought out the toothpick…
Unfortunately, the chocolate was hard and crumbly instead of smooth. There was no fixing this.
I had some fresh chips of a different brand, and thought that might do the trick. On the next batch, I took the cookies out a few minutes before they were done and added chips to the top. I gave them a few more minutes in the oven for the chips to melt.
Indeed, they were very melty and spreadable.
A little too much so. The chip itself didn’t stay put when I tried to pull a leg free. I ended up with facehugger cookies.
Afterwards, I did some research (the perfect time for it, right?). This is the only place I’ve seen success with the plain toothpick method, and her recipe is very different. They aren’t drop cookies at all, but something much firmer.
Nearly every other baker who had any success either piped on the legs, or used a toothpick to apply chocolate that was melted separately.
But the plot thickens. Look at this picture closely:
See the logo in the lower left? Well, Worth1000 is a design site with photoshopping contests. This particular contest was called Snackimals (get a load of the pickled frogs), and the cookie was created by chther11. That’s right, it’s not real. I would have realized this if I’d looked more closely at it, but I didn’t. The whole toothpick thing made intuitive sense. I’d only seen the cookie passing through my Pinterest feed or getting posted to my facebook wall, and didn’t question.
Personally, I think this is hilarious. I wonder how many other folks have tried and failed. At a guess: everyone who later decided to pipe on legs!
I do not consider this a loss. It’s a good story, and we got facehugger cookies out of it.
That is hilariously awesome.