Halloween Party Treat: Witches Finger Cookies
September 4, 2008 by Linette
Filed under Halloween Party
Creep out everyone at your Halloween party with witches finger cookies. You can use any shortbread cookie recipe, but here’s one for you to use if you prefer.
Witches Finger Cookie Recipe
Yield: 5 dozen
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup Butter, softened
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp Almond extract
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 2 2/3 cups Flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- 3/4 cup whole Almonds, blanched
- 2 squares of melting chocolate, or chocolate bark
Combine the sugar, egg, butter, almond extract, and vanilla in a bowl. Mix in the flour, and salt. Cover and refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes, or until it’s firm.
When you’re ready to shape the cookies, only take out a small portion of the dough at a time. Shape the cookies into fingers by rolling and working with your hands. Score the top of the cookie with a knife or spatula to make it look like the wrinkles in your knuckle. Press an imprint into the tip of the cookie with your finger to make a spot for the almond finger nail. Press an almond into the tip of each finger to look like a fingernail.
Placed on a cooking sheet lightly coated with no-stick cooking spray and bake at 325` for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are a very light golden brown. Let the cookies cool on a drying rack.
Use melting chocolate to go around the outside of the almond nail, giving a ghoulish appearance. Just melt the chocolate, put it in an icing piping bag, and cut a very small hole in the tip. Then pipe around the nail.
If you use red melting chocolate the look will be even more dramatic, you can also make small drops of chocolate blood, or chocolate cuts on the cookies if you really want to gross out your guests.
The witches finger cookies will make great party treats, but you can also bundle them up in a decorative container and use them for your Halloween party favors.
Image via stock.xpert
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Ewwww – these really are gross! The kids will love them!!
Linette, these look great, can’t wait to try!
It mentions sugar in the instructions but not in the ingredient list – how much sugar is needed for this recipe??
Yeah, you probably need that:) One cup, thanks for catching it!
The cookies tend to flatten so keep them in the fridge up until baking. The chocolate around the fingernail did not turn out, so I painted the fingernails chocolate instead. The blanching of the almonds took the most time, but I tried a few unblanced and they looked great. It’s a fun treat for Halloween, but be sure you have an afternoon to make them.
Any tips for stopping them from flattening out? Mine keep coming out like pancakes!
leah- Try chilling them before you bake them.
If you’re melting the chocolate around the fingernails, make sure you use a fine decorating tip, or you can use decorator, or gel icing around the edge if you have a fine tip on your decorator bag.
I made a slight change for kids with nut allergies…no almonds or extract. I added green food coloring and used yellow green icing on the nail bed…my son calls them…gross ogre fingers.
I’ve made shortbread witches’ fingers for years and they are always a hit! It’s important to use a recipe with no leavening agents so the cookies stick to their shape. (I prefer a pecan shortbread which gives them a slightly darker, deader, skin color). It works really well to use sliced almonds painted with plain old red food coloring, inserted as fingernails before baking, to give a creepy reality to the cookies. Really look at your fingers & imagine the bones only when shaping them. That will get you the most realistic look. Also don’t make the knuckle wrinkle marks too perfect. Serve on a wooden cutting board with red food coloring dripped on a cleaver to make the service truly creepy!
These have become a tradition at our annual work Halloween Luncheon which includes all kinds of gross food titles and creative gross looking but delicious dishes! People come to me year after year asking if I am making these! This is the fourth year now!!! I add a little more flour so they don’t spread too much. I also used slivered almonds for realistic looking nails….yuk! Delicious!
Make these thin or they will get too fat! We called the first batch ogre toes and the second witches fingers and we used regular whole almonds.