Recipe details
Prep time
20
min
Cooking time
10
min
Total time
30
min
Ingredients
- 280g plain flour
- 100g ground almonds
- 225g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 100g golden caster sugar
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- A pinch of salt
- Blanched almonds (enough for each finger)
- 1 tsp of red jam
- Red food colouring
Instructions
- Start by lining two trays and pre heating the oven to 170ºc
- Before you begin, paint each of your almonds with food colouring and put to one side. (This step can be done in advance) Alternatively, use regular almonds and don’t paint them.
- In a small bowl mix the plain flour, the ground almonds, salt and mixed spice. Put to one side.
- In a larger bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the butter and golden caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the almond and vanilla extract and briefly whisk again.
- Fold in the flour and mix until no dry flour remains and it comes together into a dough.
- Either use a scoop for accurate measuring, or if you want to be super thorough, weigh each biscuit dough finger. I weighed 20g of biscuit dough each time.
- Take your dough, roll into a log, then lay on your prepared trays. Press down with your finger twice along the dough, creating the knuckles. Use a cocktail stick to add a few realistic knuckle fold lines.
- Dab a little jam on the end of each witch finger and press the painted almond ‘nail’ into each one.
- Transfer to the freezer for 20-30 minutes, then bake for 10 minutes.They will puff up slightly in the oven, and if some have loosened in shape slightly you can easily reshape whilst still warm.
- Leave to cool and enjoy! Store in a cool dry place for up to 5 days.
How to customise this recipe and make it your own:
Change the flavouring: By exploring flavourings you can adapt the recipe to suit your taste. Coffee, lemon, and orange all work well with the ground almonds. You can also change the spices.
Experiment with nuts for the nails: Green pistachios work well, meaning you don't need to paint them for an extra spooky effect. Cashew nuts also add an irregular, creepy effect.
Add a little colouring to your dough: By adding green, purple or orange food colouring to your dough you can achieve bolder colours and added witchy effects. For example, green witch fingers with black painted nails would look really effective!
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