Spooky Skele-Bats

These chocolate skeleton bat cookies are the perfect sweet and spooky treat for your next Halloween party!

For this recipe you will need:

For the chocolate cookies:

- 1 stick cold unsalted butter (cubed)

- 1 tablespoon canola oil

- 1/2 cup granulated sugar

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

- 1 large egg

- 1/4 cup cornstarch

- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

For the chocolate cupcake tops:

- 1 box chocolate cake mix

For the icing:

- 1 Can vanilla frosting

- Green food dye

- Cinnamon candies

-Begin by combining wet and dry ingredients of the chocolate cookie recipe to create the dough (the dough will end up being pretty solid).

-After the dough is prepared, place between two sheets of parchment paper and roll out to about 1/4 inch thickness.

-Once the dough is rolled out, using either a knife and a stencil or a cookie cutter, cut bat shapes out of the dough and place on parchment lined baking sheet.

- Bake for about 11 minutes at 375 degrees F.

(This is a great recipe for cutout cookies as they tend not to spread and hold their shape really well)

- While the bat cookies are cooling, you can start making the muffin top bellies by mixing up the chocolate cake batter according to the directions on the box.

- Pour the chocolate batter evenly into a paper baking cup lined muffin tin.

- Bake the muffins according to instructions on box.

- After the muffins are cooled, very carefully remove just the tops, using a knife.

-Using a circular shape, cut out the very center of each muffin top (make sure the muffins are completely cooled before this step or else the circles will not be very neat, I froze mine for 20-30 minutes just to make sure I got that clean circle shape).

-Attach the cut out circle to the middle of the bat cookie using a bit of frosting.

-Once both the cookies and the muffins are completely cooled, you can begin icing.

-Fill one piping bag (or ziplock bag with a small hole cut in the corner) with vanilla frosting and another with frosting dyed green or any other color of your choice.

-Using the piping bag, create the outlines of the bat bones on the cookies (as pictured).

- Attach two cinnamon candies for the eyes

-For the smaller details such as the nostrils, teeth and toes, take a toothpick and very carefully drag it through the frosting to create gaps and indentations to create these effects.

- Once your bats are decorated they're ready for you to serve and enjoy!