Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup almond slices
1 tube red decorating gel
1 tube green food coloring
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond extract and vanilla. Slowly beat in the flour, baking powder and salt. Add drops of green food coloring to dough until you achieve a nice deep green color.
Divide the dough into four equal parts, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.. Take one quarter of the dough at a time from the refrigerator. Break off one heaping teaspoonful and roll it into a finger shape. Squeeze in around the middle of the finger to create a knuckle shape. Then, using a butter knife, make indents in several places to resemble a finger. Repeat with rest of dough.
Place cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes – let cool. Then, squeeze red decorating gel onto the tip of each finger and gently press an almond sliver on top so the gel oozes out from underneath.
Remove cookies from baking sheets and let them cool on wire racks. Then serve and enjoy!
Adapted from “CDKitchen.com’s” Marlene C. Mcasias

goglin-goodies

Ingredients:
1 small box rice cereal
1 small box corn or wheat cereal
1 small box rice puffs cereal
3 cups pretzel sticks
1 stick of margarine
1 bag of milk chocolate chips
1 bag of white chocolate chips
2 cups of milk
Directions:
Line a cookie sheet or large baking pan with tin foil
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, putting margarine in the pan and the pan in the oven as the oven preheats so that the margarine will melt.
Remove pan from oven and add pretzels, rice puffs and corn and rice cereal – slowly stirring to coat with melted margarine or butter.
Once all the cereal and pretzels are in the pan, place pan uncovered in oven and bake for 20 minutes.
Once the snack mix is finished baking, remove from oven and allow to cool. While cooling, in a small sauce pan, over low heat, melt milk chocolate chips with one cup of milk, adding milk slowly until melted. Repeat for white chocolate chips.
With a spoon, drizzle melted milk and white chocolate over the snack mix and allow to firm. Once chocolate is more firm, toss and serve. Store cool in airtight container for future snacks.

spider-bites

Ingredients:
1 cup shortening 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup sugar ½ cup cocoa
2 Tbsp. water 1 tsp. salt
1 Tsp. vanilla ½ tsp. baking powder
2 eggs 1 package black rope licorice cut into short 1” pieces
1 small tube of green (or color of choice) decorating gel
Toothpicks
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine shortening, sugar, water, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Add eggs into the mixture and blend.
Slowly mix in flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder using low-medium speed.
Drop tablespoon helpings of mixture onto ungreased cookie sheets and roll each helping into a ball.
Bake 9 minutes at 375 degrees. The batch should produce around three dozen cookies.
Let cookies cool for about 10 minutes. Then using a toothpick, create four small holes in either side of the cookie.
Still using the toothpick, push one end of a piece of the cut licorice into each hole, creating the “legs” of the spider. Keep licorice pieces short so as not to harm braces.
Once all eight pieces are in place, create eyes or decorate at will using the green decorating gel. Then serve and enjoy!
Recipe idea adapted from “The Braces Cookbook” by Pamela Waterman