How to ‘Spiderweb’ Your Halloween Desserts

Knowing how to make terrible desserts is an essential skill in October, especially if you live in a household of young people. There’s no shortage of silly, spooky Halloween figures, but not everyone has the artistic skills to sculpt a fondant Count Chocula head. However, ohne of the most basic Striking, sinister designs is the spiderweb and You don’t need talent or plenty of a steady hand to make one.

As opposed to piping out frosting designs or icing an entire cake (which requires patience and a certain lSkill)make a spiderWeaving patterns are less about precision and more about the consistency of the medium you are working with. The easiest way to create a mesh pattern is to draw a spiral in a contrasting color to the background color and draw the spiral in lines from the center to the edge. In pastry, this would be a version of marbling or feathering lines. And no, you don’t need a steady hand – although yyou do have to draw them spiral once you draw the lines The pattern will change and no one will ever know if it’s your initial spiral was terrible.

That doesn’t mean you can’t screw it up -yYou need to keep the consistency of your components in mind. This is especially true of chocolate, as it hardens as it cools. If the “mesh” is too stiff or the background color fades, the pattern will not pull; it will just break and that will look terrifying for other reasons.

When you dip cookies in chocolate to make a spiderNet, keep the dark chocolate as hot as possible without burning it, and use a microwave-safe bowl. As it begins to cool and thicken, Microwave it for a few seconds to bring it back to a liquid state. For the white chocolate, you can also store it in a microwave-safe bowl or use one small disposable piping bag. You can microwave each one for a few seconds and massage in the white chocolate until it’s runny again. If you’re marbling a glaze or glaze, temperature isn’t an issue, but make sure you draw the pattern immediately after creating the spiral. If you make a spiral and walk away for 10 minutes, chances are the frosting has set and won’t murmur anymore.

An easy place to start practicing this technique is with contrasting pie, brownie, or cheesecake batters where temperature control isn’t as much of an issue. But if you want to challenge yourself with halloween spiderWeb Cookies, start with any sugar cookie recipe and use a cookie cutter to cut out circles. I started with that simple recipe from the Food Network and replaced the milk measurement with 2 teaspoons of orange food coloring for an off-putting orange hue (you can also mix red and yellow in a 1:2 ratio).

While the cookies cool, melt about four ounces of dark chocolate in a bowl in the microwave. Stir every 30 seconds, and as it becomes more melted, stir every 7 seconds until smooth. Melt a few ounces of white chocolate in the same way. Place the melted white chocolate in a small piping bag, make a cornet out of parchmentor Cut off the corner of a zip pocket if you don’t have a piping bag. If you are more of a visual learner, Check out this video about spring technique.

Dip a biscuit in the dark chocolate. Place it on a cooling rack or on parchment paper. Using the piping bag, immediately form a spiral with the white chocolate (a triple spiral also works).concentric-circle the bullseye pattern if that’s easier for you). Immediately use a toothpick or the very tip of a small paring knife to draw a line from the center to the outer edge of the cookie. Turn the cookie or your body and make another line next to it. Continue this movement around the entire circle, always pulling from the center to the outer edge. The hot chocolate seals any dips and you have a beautifully haunted cookie. Normally you would want to do this for efficiency reasons Dip all the cookies, squirt all the lines, then draw the patterns; but for marbling, ieIt is important to make each cookie one after the other to prevent the dark chocolate from setting before drawing the white chocolate pattern. Heat the chocolate in the microwave regularly to keep the pattern smooth. You’ll know when the chocolate is setting since it won’t grind as smoothly.

You can do this technique with contrasting colors of fluffy batter, frosting, or icing. Just take a small portion of the base color and mix in some food coloring. Pipe a spiral and pull out the pattern with a small knife. If you still feel unsure about the method, ask your child to do it. Chances are their circle drawing skills are more practiced than yours.