Make the dough

• In a large mixing bowl, using an electric hand mixer at medium speed, beat together the peanut butter, butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until fully combined.3/4 cup (192 grams) creamy peanut butter,1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter,1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar,1/2 cup (100 grams) brown sugar,1 large egg,1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• In a separate medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Gradually stir this dry mixture into the peanut butter mixture. My dough was quite firm and easy to roll into balls. If yours isn’t, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough.1 1/2 cups (188 grams) flour,3/4 teaspoon baking soda,1/2 teaspoon baking powder,1/4 teaspoon salt
• Preheat the oven to 375 °F (190 °C) and line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.
• Place the 3 tbsp of sugar in a small bowl.3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• Shape the dough into twelve (you’ll do the rest later) 1-inch (31-gram) balls and roll them in the granulated sugar.
• Place the dough balls on the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 3 inches apart.
• Bake in the preheated oven for about 10-11 minutes or until the cookies develop cracks on the surface, and they’ve browned nicely.
• Right after you take them out of the oven, use the bottom of a rounded teaspoon to make an indentation in the center of the cookies for the spider’s body. Don’t press so hard that you break through the cookies.
• Remove to a cooling rack after 10 minutes to let cool completely.

Make the spiders:

• Place the chocolate and cream in a microwave-safe bowl.1 1/2 cups (256 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips,6 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• Melt in 30-second increments at half power, stirring after every increment, until melted.
• If it’s too thin to pipe right now, let sit until firm enough to pipe spider legs onto the cookies. Mine was good to go immediately.
• Pipe 8 legs onto the 24 cookies using a small round tip, making sure that the legs start inside of the indentation, and not on top of it.
• Switch to a larger round tip and fill in the indentation with ganache and make the spider body a bit rounded by piping over the top of the indentation. They should look 3D and not flat.
• Add on 2 eyeballs per cookie (if the ganache is still too soft to do that, you may need to wait a bit or toss them into the fridge very briefly, but I had no issue with it).48 candy eyeballs