Italian Bloody Witches Fingers

Ready in

3 hours

Preparation

1 hours

Cooking

15 min

Portions

14 Pieces

Cost

chip

difficulty

easy

5/5

Trick or treat?

Bloody witches finger

Trick or treat, this is the classic phrase that can be heard echoing in the streets, from children celebrating on Halloween evening. It is not said, however, that the treat must necessarily be something bad but, on the contrary, it can be something, ugly to look at and excellent to eat, such as, for example, the witch’s fingers. The witch’s fingers are exquisite spiced shortcrust pastry cookies in the shape of fingers, enriched with almonds and colored chocolate. The witch’s fingers are sweets with a great visual effect, ideal for enriching the Halloween buffet or, as I said before, for tricks. The recipe for these cookies is very simple to perform, in fact, just roll out the pastry looking at your fingers, put an almond on the tip to make the nails and you’re done. You can serve these cookies with an excellent pumpkin custard, for the recipe see the blog.

Ingredients

Crust
  • 250g flour 00
  • 100g butter
  • 100g sugar
  • 1 whole eggs
  • organic orange zest
  • 1 spoon of pisto*
Decoration 
  • 150 g blanched almonds
  • 250g white chocolate
  • 1 sachet red food coloring
  • j.e. sour cherry topping

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Directions

On the pastry board, pour the flour and make the fountain*

fontana pasta frolla

buccia arancia pastafrolla

Put the sugar in the fountain, break the eggs and grate the orange peel over all the flour and then sprinkle the pisto * also over all the flour

Take the butter at room temperature and cut it into small pieces on top of all the flour

burro pasta frolla

impasto pastafrolla

Quickly mix all the ingredients to ensure that the heat of your hands does not overheat the dough

Roll up the dough and mash it a little

panetto pastafrolla

pasta frolla frollatura

Wrap the dough in a cloth and put it to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes if you need it immediately, otherwise 12 hours

On a pastry board, cut the shortcrust pastry into small pieces and roll it out into sticks with the length and width of a finger

Slightly round the tip of each stick and put a peeled almond on top, to make it look like a nail

With a knife, make segments on the sticks to make the folds of the phalanx appear

Place the sticks, spaced apart, on the baking tray covered with parchment paper

Bake at 180°C (350°F) in the oven, static mode and previously heated and cook for 15 minutes or until they are slightly golden and fragrant, then, take out of the oven and let cool

When you have finished making all the cookies, cut the white chocolate into small pieces and melt it in a double boiler, then add the red coloring

Lightly dip the biscuit in the red chocolate, on the side that does not have the almond and put it to dry on the parchment paper

Remove the almond from the biscuit, put some sour cherry topping and put the almond back again, in this way the effect of a bloody finger is created. Let the chocolate and topping dry well before playing your tricks

Tips

  1. The orange must be organic and well washed and dried.
  2. The orange can be grated directly on the flour.
  3. If you want a truly excellent shortcrust pastry, knead it the day before, so it doesn’t break during processing.
  4. This is a hard shortcrust pastry, if you need a soft shortcrust pastry, add a pinch of baking soda or a sachet of baking powder to the dough.
  5. *The fountain is the hole that is made in the flour so as not to let the liquid ingredients come out.
  6. *Pisto is a mixture of spices used especially in the areas of Naples, if you do not have it you can replace it with the mix of the following spices: 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, 1 tea spoon of ginger and a tea spoon of nutmeg.
  7. *The bain marie is a cooking method that is carried out through the use of two pots of different sizes. The larger pot goes under and half filled with water. The other, the smaller one, must be immersed in water, taking care not to let the water fall into it because in the latter it is the one where cooking takes place.
  8. When melting the chocolate you have to be careful that the water from the bain marie does not end up inside the chocolate otherwise it will burn.
  9. The chocolate must always be turned otherwise it burns.
  10. The dye for the chocolate must be food grade and in powder form.

Storage

Bloody witch fingers can keep 6 days at room temperature and refrigerated if it’s hot.

Equipments

  1. Oven
  2. Drip tray or baking tray
  3. Greaseproof paper
  4. Cooker
  5. Knife
  6. Pastry board
  7. 2 casseroles of different sizes
  8. Bowl
  9. Fridge
  10. Tray
  11. Tea towel
  12. Spoon

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