Halloween Chocolate Bat Wings

For a fun Halloween treat, roll out some chocolate bat wings! These spooky chocolate cookies hang on the sides of your mug, ready for dunking.

The cookies are amazingly rich and crispy, and not too sweet. If you have a bat cookie cutter, the process goes quickly. Using a template will take a little longer, but the result is definitely worth the effort. Surprise your little ghosts and goblins with a mug of hot chocolate and a pair of bat wings. Just remember to hide a few for yourself!

Hanging Bat Wing Cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons strong coffee
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Black sugar for decorating

1. In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until creamy.
2. Add the egg and beat well.
3. Add coffee and beat until mixture lightens in color – about 1 minute.
4. Melt chocolate in microwave, beginning with 30 seconds and continuing to heat at 15 second increments until completely melted, stirring often. Add to mixture in bowl and beat until completely combined.
5. Add dry ingredients and mix together well.
6. Divide dough in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
7. Heat oven to 350 F.
8. Working with half of the dough at a time, flatten dough on a lightly floured piece of parchment. Cover with a second piece of parchment and roll dough out, no thicker than 1/4-inch. For crunchier cookies, you can roll it out a little thinner.
9. Cut out wings using a large bat cookie cutter (cut wings off of the bat and re-roll the scraps) or a template. To make a template, trace or draw a 3-inch bat wing on two layers of cardboard or card stock (paper plates work well) and cut out. Lay the template on the dough and, using a very sharp paring knife, cut around the template for each wing. Make sure you have an even number of right and left wings!

10. Gently lift each wing with a lightly floured metal spatula and place it on a cookie sheet. The cookies can be placed close together; they hold their shape very well.
11. In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the cookie dough with 1 tablespoon water. Stir well and place in a plastic zipper bag with the corner trimmed off, or a pastry bag with a small writing tip. Squeeze a thin line of dough along the top of the bat wing and down to each point, creating “bones”.
12. To make cup hanging cookies, cut a small vertical strip of dough out of the wing, just inside the first bone.