Imagine yourself baking up a batch of balsamic fudge cookies in the late hours of a dark, rainy evening when suddenly the air seems to stop. It's as if you're suspended in a place where there's no oxygen, yet you can still breathe, and the hair on your arms stands up and the back of your neck feels cold and prickly. Some sort of strange fear keeps you from moving.
You try to convince yourself that you're being silly as you force yourself to move forward to pick up a measuring cup, but then you hear a faint noise, like someone is scratching at the window or maybe your cat is pawing at the newspapers left on the livingroom table. You stop and look around. Nothing is there, so why does it feel as if something definitely is? Okay, your mind must be playing tricks on you. Try to forget it.
You start to relax and continue on with your baking. You bend down to put your cookies in the oven but then suddenly you feel fingers caressing the back of your neck, similar to what your significant other does to you affectionately, but it doesn't feel comforting and there's a certain coldness to it. You panic, and then you turn to see that these fingers are not attached to a body. They're severed, suspended in air. You look forward to see that your cookies have also turned into severed fingers, and you scream. Ahhhhh...this is real!
You try to convince yourself that you're being silly as you force yourself to move forward to pick up a measuring cup, but then you hear a faint noise, like someone is scratching at the window or maybe your cat is pawing at the newspapers left on the livingroom table. You stop and look around. Nothing is there, so why does it feel as if something definitely is? Okay, your mind must be playing tricks on you. Try to forget it.
You start to relax and continue on with your baking. You bend down to put your cookies in the oven but then suddenly you feel fingers caressing the back of your neck, similar to what your significant other does to you affectionately, but it doesn't feel comforting and there's a certain coldness to it. You panic, and then you turn to see that these fingers are not attached to a body. They're severed, suspended in air. You look forward to see that your cookies have also turned into severed fingers, and you scream. Ahhhhh...this is real!
Happy Halloween! My edible bloody finger cookies are the stars of this story, and the perfect finger food for your Halloween party. They are adapted from Lindy Loo's cookies, which I made last year and have since reinvented. Enjoy!
Bloody finger cookies
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached AP flour
1 cup brown rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup sunflower or canola oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp pure almond extract
1 cup whole blanched almonds
1/2 cup slivered almonds
Store-bought red decorating gel (check ingredients to make sure it's vegan)
1. In a large bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, unbleached flour, brown rice flour, baking powder and sea salt. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil, vanilla extract and almond extract.
3. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and mix until a dough forms. The dough should stick together when pressed together. If it seems too dry, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of cold water. Refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes.
4. Take 1/4 of the dough out of the fridge at a time and roll 1 tablespoon into a thin, round finger shape. Squeeze in around the middle of the finger to create a knuckle, and use a paring knife to make indents at the joints to resemble a finger. Press a whole almond firmly into one end for a nail, and insert a slivered almond in the other end to resemble a bone. Repeat with remaining dough.
5. Place cookies on a cookie pan that is lined with parchment paper and bake at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the cookie bottoms are light golden (the tops should be dry but not browned). Allow cookies to cool before decorating.
6. Gently lift up the almond nails and squeeze red decorating gel into the nail bed and press the almond back into place, so the gel oozes out underneath. Add in gel at the stump end of the fingertip so it looks like it has been severed from a hand.
7. Allow the gel to firm up and then store them in an air-tight container for up to one week.
Halloween story credit to The Daring Kitchen and Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives
7 comments:
You're hilarious! Happy Halloween. It looks like yours will be both sweet and scary.
These are really frightening! Especially the detail of the little bone sticking out... ouch. So I guess they're not vegan then, are they. ;) The scary part is that they sound super yummy! Fantastic job on the recipe, fingers, awesome photos, and great story - thanks for sharing - happy Halloweeeeeen!
xo Patty (Baking is Hot)
Love the fingers! Bet you are having a fun Halloween. Thanks for sharing.
Frighteningly realistic. These are the best I've seen this season. Great job!
Haha they're really great! I love the bone and the blood. Impressive!
i love these! so detailed...and creepy!
Love the attention to detail!! So nice to see a vegan option for spooky fun! Very creative!
Post a Comment