Halloween Fingers (almond cookies)

As delicious as they are spooky, these finger-shaped cookies are terrifyingly perfect for Halloween. If you manage to overcome the initial creepiness and dare to take a bite, you will not be able to stop eating them, from the nails to the last crumb! Might as well be the ones of any sinister witch, this Halloween Almond Fingers recipe is going to terrify! HAHAHA!

You will see that despite being a very simple recipe , you will have to organize yourself a bit. The dough for these biscuits, by using butter, softens when handled, so it requires a few rests in the fridge to give it time to take shape again; but following the considerations that I indicate in the recipe and at the end of the post, it will be very easy for you to get some horrifying fingers.

The little ones can collaborate, they will surely be delighted to help make the dough curls, to mark the knuckles of the fingers or to put the almond nails! It is a great recipe to make with them; They will have a great time, it will help them practice patience and crafts almost in equal parts and they will be able to scare their friends and the elderly, with just the move of a finger!

With the amounts of the recipe, approximately 22 fingers can come out. So let's prepare the cobwebs and the most monstrous decoration for Halloween, let's go with the recipe!

Ingredients (for about 22 cookie fingers)

For the mass:

• 185 g pastry flour
• 40 g of flour
• 50 g almond flour (finely ground almond, preferably of the Marcona variety)
• 100 g icing sugar
• 125g butter, diced and cold (reserve in the fridge until use)
• 1 whole egg + 1 yolk lightly beaten
• 1 pinch of salt
• a bit of vanilla paste

To decorate:

• Largueta variety almond*
• 1 egg yolk with a few drops of water to brush the fingers

*The largueta almonds will be the "nails" of the fingers. You can put them whole or you can open them without breaking much, to use one half on each finger.

Preparation

1. In the KitchenAid bowl, place the flour, the pastry flour, the almond flour, the icing sugar and the pinch of salt, and stir with the paddle accessory at a gentle speed, so that they mix well.
2. Next, we added the diced butter that we had in the fridge and raised the speed a little (3 or 3.5). We stir until we see that the dough has a sandy texture, similar to that of powdered Parmesan cheese.
3. Add the lightly beaten egg and yolk and the vanilla paste, and continue stirring until the mass is transformed and we see it compact.
4. Remove the dough from the bowl, using a spatula or a flexible scraper, and wrap it in transparent film. We cool it in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until we feel it firmer.
5. After that time, you have to start shaping the dough to make the fingers. To prevent the whole dough from softening, the ideal is to take it out in parts, keeping the rest cold. Take the dough out of the fridge, cut off about a third of it and return the rest to the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap.
6. With the part of the dough that we have removed, we form curlers or cylinders between 1.5 cm and 2 cm wide at most and approximately 9.5 or 10 cm long. As we make them, we arrange them on a perforated baking tray , lined with baking paper or with a perforated silicone baking mat , and we take them to the fridge.
7. We repeat the process until we finish the dough and let the curlers cool and harden a bit before finishing shaping them.
8. When they are ready, we take them out of the fridge and we are putting an almond on one of the ends of each curl as a fingernail. Press the almond lightly into the dough, so that it is well fixed.
9. With the help of a knife or a toothpick, we mark the knuckles and mold them slightly, taking our fingers as a model.
10. Return the fingers to the fridge to cool well before baking. Ideally, leave them overnight in the fridge.
11. When we see that the mass of the fingers has cooled down enough (when we touch it we feel it firm), we will brush them with a yolk to which we will have added a few drops of water to make it more fluid.
12. Once we have painted the fingers, we will turn on the oven at 180 °C, heat up and down and when the oven is at 180 °C, insert the tray and bake for about 15 minutes or until we see that they begin to take color. Depending on how golden we like the cookies, we can leave them a little longer.
13. Once they are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. Freshly baked they will be somewhat soft, but they harden when cooled.
14. All that remains is to present them on a plate (the Le Creuset pumpkin plate is perfect for the occasion). We can put a bit of strawberry jam or any red fruit around the almond, and thus we will have terrifying Halloween fingers, which will leave our guests speechless and will delight the little ones!

Considerations

• You will see that when you work the dough (when making the curls or when you finish shaping the fingers), it softens. For this reason, it is important to remove from the fridge only the amount that you are going to handle, keeping the rest cold. If you do it several times, you will save time, since when you finish forming the curls with the last portion of the dough, the first ones you formed will already be cold and you will be able to start shaping the fingers without having to wait.
• When you bake the cookies, you will see the dough expand a bit and the fingers change shape slightly. It is for this reason that the ideal is to make fine curls, preferably 1.5 cm or, at most, 2 cm. So even if they expand a bit, they'll still look good (as scary as they are!!).
• In addition, among the ingredients we add a part of flour, which will help absorb part of the fat and water, which will also be helpful.
• Likewise, we can prevent them from expanding by leaving them in the fridge for longer than usual. The ideal is to prepare them from one day to the next, or at least let them rest in the fridge all night.
• By using both the perforated tray and the perforated silicone mat, we will get the dough to cook faster, be crispier and less deformed.
• When we take the fingers out of the oven and place them on the cooling rack, we must avoid handling them, since they are soft when freshly baked and we could break them.
• Every oven is different, so it is important to control the cooking after 10-12 minutes, so that they don't get too toasted if we want them lightly toasted. Depending on how you like the cookies (more or less golden, more or less crunchy), you will have to adjust the baking time.
• If you want to give them a much creepier look, you can use some natural powdered food coloring in the color you like in the batter, or swap out the strawberry jam on your nails for melted chocolate or crème de cacao. What you imagine!
• This dough is ideal not only for making terrifyingly delicious fingers. You can have some delicious cookies by making balls with portions of dough; you flatten them slightly and prick them with a fork before putting them in the oven. Decorated with a bit of icing, chocolate, praline or whatever, dipped in a large glass of milk, they will brighten up your afternoon.