A couple years back, a volunteer brought witch finger cookies to CROC (where I used to work). They looked disgustingly scary! And I had the brief resolution to remember the recipe for a later date, but then I forgot about them. That is, I forgot about them until allrecipes (can you see a trend for where I get cooking ideas?) brought them to my attention once again. With a few changes, here is what I came up with.
So, here's how it works.
Ingredients:
-1 cup butter, softened (I used unsalted)
-1 cup confectioners sugar
-1 egg
-1 teaspoon almond extract
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-2 and 2/3 cups flour
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-Roughly 1 cup whole almonds
-green food coloring
-1 tube red decorating gel
Directions:
-Beat together butter, sugar, egg, almond, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl.
-Combine flour, baking powder, and salt and gradually add to other ingredients.
-I added a few drops of green food coloring to make it more witchy.
-Refrigerator dough for 20-30 minutes.
-While the dough cooled, I blanched the almonds. To do so, I boiled water (just enough to cover the almonds). After the water came to a boil, drop in the almonds and take the pan off the heat. Let the almonds sit for 1 minute and then drain. Cool the almonds by running them under cold water. Spread almonds on a flat surface (you could even use a towel to soak up some of the remaining water). Then, rub/push the skin off the almond. This takes a little effort, but cheaper than buying blanched almonds.
-Preheat oven to 325. I ended up using a slightly lower temp (315). Lightly grease baking sheets.
-Remove dough from refrigerator in small amounts (so that it doesn't get too warm). I rolled the dough between open hands to make finger shape. Make sure to roll fairly small (think pinky finger width), because they will expand in the oven.
-Place one almond into the end of each cookie to give the appearance of a fingernail. You can also take a knife and make tiny slits for the knuckles. Also, I rolled a few small little balls and placed them on some of the fingers to look like warts.
-Cook for 20 minutes. I took mine out after 16 minutes (but I'm not sure if this is related to Denver's altitude or not). Just check them to make sure they do not burn.
-Once they cool a little, remove the almond, squeeze some red gel in its place, and replace the almond causing the gel to ooze out slightly.
-Dab a little red gel on the end of each finger to give the appearance of it being severed.
And BAM, you have witch finger cookies! And you can take them to a party and be the talk of the night!
Which is exactly what we did!
Happy first day of November!
2 comments:
ewe!!!!!! so disgusting and what an awesome idea!
i showed some people at work this picture and they were grossed out too!!!! I am so glad that we made these.
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