BAT AND COBWEB COOKIES

Steps:

• Sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder together into a large bowl; set aside.
• Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat on medium-high speed until fluffy. Beat in ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Beat in eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low; beat in flour mixture.
• Divide dough into 3 equal pieces, and flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough 1/8 inch thick. Transfer dough to a parchment-lined baking sheet, refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Use bat and cobweb cookie cutters to create shapes. Transfer to baking sheets, and refrigerate 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining disks.
• Bake cookies until crisp but not darkened, rotating sheets halfway through, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer sheets to wire racks, let cookies cool completely before decorating with Royal Icing.
• Using desired base color (black for bats, white for cobwebs) and a pastry bag fitted with a very small plain round tip (such as #3), pipe icing on each cookie to form an outline. Fill in with more icing, and smooth with an offset spatula. Embellish before icing dries.
• Bats: Using colored icing, pipe three lines in an arc on the still-wet icing base. For each wing: Drag a wooden skewer across the width in alternating directions. Add eyes after icing has dried.
• Cobwebs: Pipe a spiral of black icing on the still-wet icing base. Pipe decorative dots on points of cookie. Using a wooden skewer, draw lines from the center outward, connecting the center of the web and the decorative dots. Add spiders to webs after icing has dried.