October 27, 2012  by

Best halloween Treats- Almond Witchy Fingers

Witchy fingers- you can use any color for the nails
I mixed it up with black

Almond Witchy Fingers

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 egg (room temp best)
1 tsp Almond extract
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 2/3 cup Flour
1 tsp Salt
3/4 cup whole Almonds, blanched
2 squares melting chocolate (optional)

Directions

1. 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.
Once you have the (chilled) dough, use a scooper to create
a nice uniformity of size
Cut the ball in two or you will have ginormous fingers
Roll out the door
Enlist your kids and start painting
2. 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.
3. 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.
This will make about 30 fingers (depending on how
much dough you devour)

Tips:
1. I was very intimated by this, since I’m as artistically akin to a walrus (I flounder in my fatness on the beach as I watch others do the real work). However, used my scooper (same as previous recipe) to place the (chilled) dough on the parchment paper (on the cookie sheet). I failed on the first two attempts, as this resulted in a Fessick-size finger (that would be the giant in The Princess Bride). Go for something more human size. I then cut the dough ball in half. This was more realistic.
Remember to ‘score’ the fingers to make it took realistic
2. Round the dough into a ball (rolling between your palms)
3. Using your fore-and middle fingers, roll the dough on a flat surface (I used my breadboard with a bit of flour), pressing a little harder, resulting in one end being a little thinner.
4. Cut your time down dramatically by skipping the chocolate rims. I made it easy on myself and fun for the kids. I took a paintbrush, dropped red food coloring in a ramiken and painted the top of the (dried) blanched almonds. It definitely needed 2-3 coats to attain the deep-red color.
Allow the fingers to cool entirely before moving.
5. Last but not least- this recipe didn’t call for an egg white application, but I added it after the first batch looked–boring. Take 1 egg white and apply a nice, thin coating (using another paintbrush). This makes the finger shine in a nice-crusty-sort of way.
6. OH! be sure to push the almond fingernails in the dough a little ways–otherwise the fingernails will fall off.

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