For Halloween, I baked cookies to bring to a party. First, I made the dough I wrote about before, adding dark chocolate wafers to 3/4 of the dough, and almonds and dried cranberries to the other 1/4, giving them a healthy sprinkling of fleur de sel before baking. Those are always a hit, but I also wanted to do something more in line with the holiday. I decided to do the "Finger Food" cookies found here at Nosh With Me.
They taste like a butter cookie, similar to ones I had at Christmas growing up. The dough is made of so few ingredients that these can be a last minute addition to your baking schedule. I rolled them with my hands, shaped the knuckles and scored them with a paring knife,
and took great pleasure in choosing only the most nail-like but slightly ragged almonds for the nails.
They began freaking me out almost immediately.
Although they are the same size as my finger in this picture, you should ideally make them a bit smaller, as the high butter content spreads the dough during baking.
At this point, they were making me extremely uncomfortable, and I was glad to shove them into the oven. They cook quickly, and I recommend not browning them too much, although browning some of the batches more is an easy way to make the fingers more multicultural without resorting to cocoa. After they cooled, I took a knife and some red icing and made them extra creepy.
I gave the stumps lots of icing, any fingers that had lost nails during baking got them re-glued on with icing, and splotches and blood splashes got added randomly. Channel your inner artist. Or inner serial killer.
My husband took them to his Halloween night shift in the ER, and everyone was pleased. The feedback I got back included "the nail is the best part, it looks infected with a fungus" so who knows if that counts as a compliment. At the Halloween party, several people mentioned that they looked almost too creepy to eat, so maybe this isn't the best for something like a kid's party, they are EXTREMELY realistic.
The fact that they aren't too sweet also made them great for soothing my stomach the next morning after a party where I was drinking, so, BONUS! I can also imagine that they would be great alongside coffee or hot chocolate for dipping. I may end up making these for Christmas with green blood as Elf Fingers. Or maybe I will take pity on my friends and make cookie shaped cookies.
