1. Preparation and Preheating

• Preheat Your Oven: Start by preheating your oven to 400°F (200°C). This ensures the oven is hot and ready to go, which will give you a nicely toasted bagel base and perfectly melted cheese.
• Prepare Your Baking Sheet: Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. This is a crucial step for easy cleanup and prevents the cheese from sticking to the pan.
• Slice the Bagels: Carefully slice each of the 4 bagels in half horizontally, creating 8 individual rounds. Arrange them cut-side-up on your prepared baking sheet, leaving a little space between each one.

2. Creating the Creepy Crawly Olive Spiders

This is the most creative part of the process. It’s helpful to do all your olive slicing before you start assembling the bagels.

• For the Spider Bodies: Take half of your black olives (about 10-12 olives, depending on how many spiders you want). Slice these olives in half lengthwise. Each half will serve as one perfect, rounded spider body. Set them aside.
• For the Spider Legs: Take the remaining black olives. Slice them in half lengthwise first. Then, take each of those halves and slice them thinly into little crescent-shaped slivers. These will be your spider legs. You’ll need 8 legs per spider, so be sure to slice enough!

3. Assembling Your Bagel Bites (Two Variations)

Now it’s time to build your spooky snacks. You can dedicate half your bagels to the pizza style and half to the cream cheese style for variety.

For the Pizza Spider Bagel Bites:

1. Sauce the Bagels: Spoon about 1 tablespoon of pizza or marinara sauce onto the cut side of four of the bagel halves. Use the back of the spoon to spread it evenly, leaving a small border around the edge.
2. Add Seasoning (Optional): If using, sprinkle a little dried oregano or Italian seasoning over the sauce for an extra layer of flavor.
3. Cheese It Up: Generously sprinkle about 3 tablespoons of shredded mozzarella cheese over the sauce on each bagel half.
4. Place the Spiders: Gently place one olive half (the “body”) in the center of the cheese on each bagel. Then, carefully arrange 4 of the thin olive slivers (“legs”) on each side of the body, tucking them slightly into the cheese to help them stay in place. Your spider is now complete!

For the Spider Web Bagel Bites:

1. Toast the Bagels First: For the cream cheese version, it’s best to lightly toast the bagel halves before adding the toppings. Place the four plain bagel halves on the baking sheet and toast them in the 400°F oven for 3-4 minutes, or until just lightly golden. This prevents them from getting soggy.
2. Create the Web: Spread a layer of softened cream cheese over each of the toasted bagel halves. To create the web effect, you can either use a knife to carefully draw concentric circles and then drag the tip of the knife from the center outwards to create lines, or for a more defined look, place some cream cheese in a small plastic bag, snip off the corner, and pipe the web design onto the bagel.
3. Add the Spider: Place one olive “body” and eight olive “legs” onto the cream cheese web, just as you did for the pizza version. Since these don’t need to be baked again, the spider can sit right on top.

4. Baking to Perfection

• Bake the Pizza Bites: Place the baking sheet with the assembled Pizza Spider Bagel Bites into the preheated 400°F oven.
• Cook Time: Bake for 8-12 minutes, or until the cheese is fully melted, bubbly, and just starting to turn golden brown at the edges. The bagels should be toasted and crisp.
• Cool and Serve: Carefully remove the baking sheet from the oven. Let the bagel bites cool for a few minutes before transferring them to a serving platter. They will be very hot! The cream cheese version is ready to serve immediately after assembly.