If you are a Halloween party-goer like me, you’re always looking for ghoulish treats to add to your dessert table. It’s hard to be creative and come up with different and unique things every year, so when I came across this on several different blogs, I thought they would be perfect! I have my own shortbread recipe, so I wanted to make it easy for myself and use a recipe that I know works well…so the only thing I had to do was create the unique shape. My recipe worked beautifully and these came together easily.
But I didn’t want to just stop there….
A great dipping sauce is ideal for these delicious shortbread fingers, and I blood red sauce is so appropriate. I chose strawberry, but you can choose just about anything you like…cherry or cranberry would work great too.
So whether you are making them for the little kids or the big kids in your life, they will all have as much fun eating them as you will making them…guaranteed!
Witch’s Shortbread Fingers
1 recipe shortbread
1 recipe strawberry sauce
Sliced almonds
Cocoa powder (to brush on after baking)
First make your strawberry sauce and set it aside to cool. Follow the instructions so that your shortbread dough looks like this…
I measured out all of the pieces so that they would roll out to the same length and bake for the same amount of time. If you don’t have a scale, you can use a scoop and scoop out the dough for portion control and then roll it into the finger shapes.
Long and slender fingers look better than short and stubby ones…especially since the slender ones will bake out a little in the oven and get a little wider. I always add the sliced almonds for the nails before baking. Gently press the sliced almonds into the dough to create the indentation in the cookie.
Once baked the almonds will probably fall off, but that is OK…you can glue them back on with a little corn syrup. Then using a toothpick, create the marks in the skin to give them a more realistic look. Surprisingly enough, these actually show up really well after baking.
When everything is finished, bake them on a low temperature, about 325°F for about 15-20 minutes until they begin to take on just a little color.
Remove them from the oven then allow them to cool completely. Once cool, use a small craft brush to brush on some cocoa powder to accentuate the details…especially in the skin folds.
Once they are cool, assemble them on a platter with the strawberry sauce nearby for dipping…a great and easy Halloween snack.
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