Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Halloween severed finger cookies

A long time ago, a few decades I'm sorry to admit, at work somebody said, "I'll bring finger food." To some sort of break room party. This was around Halloween and that got me thinking.

I used a peanut butter cookie recipe idea and the first batch did poorly. They flattened unacceptably. I stiffened the remaining dough with additional flour and the second batch worked much better. They kept their shape as fingers with vague details, and they tasted like peanut butter cookies. They were good as a sight joke and they tasted very good.

They're especially good for dipping into coffee.

I learned to make lateral marks in the dough with a knife then compress the snake-cookies together end to end to create a bulge in the middle and wrinkle the lateral knife-marks to make knuckles, and use the same dinner knife to indent an impression for fingernails. They baked in that shape.

Key, do not use very much baking powder. So they don't expand out of shape.

Later, after the cookies cool, the same knife is dipped into plain white icing and placed in the indention and pulled away from the cookie for a fingernail that extends beyond the cookie.

The icing mixture can be adjusted with water and with confectioner's sugar to get the desired viscosity.

When they're all provided a white fingernail then a portion of icing is reserved and the rest of the icing is thinned and colored red and the cookie dipped into it then inverted and encouraged to drip down the finger. The fingers are kept upright until the icing hardens.

A white icing dot is put on the center of the severed end to represent a bone inside the finger.

I took them to work and placed them all around the bank in likely places of discovery; the desk drawers of hard workers who will reach for a pencil, the cups that hold pens and pencils, the paper cutter by the copy machines all over the bank, the knife containers in the cafeteria, the pen holders on executive desks, the letter opening machine in the mail room. Anywhere an accident might happen. Anywhere a person will find one within a day. I left them all over the place without mentioning them to anyone and I delighted in their discovery throughout the day.

I loved hearing people talking about the finger they discovered. Nobody dared eat one.

Nobody could figure out who trashed the place so horribly. Listening to people discuss them was wonderful.

Finally, when my own department was discussing the random finger situation I produced a whole box of fingers and passed them out. They were a huge hit. And I mean huge.

And I noticed that the people who dared eat them, only after they were assured they would be replaced, each to a person, started nibbling at the tip of the fingernail. They each ate the fingernail first.

That's what I did when I tested them. Anticipating that, I flavored the white icing with almond extract.

This was before everyone on earth suffered from peanut allergy.

And since then I notice the idea has been copied. Word of a good joke gets around. If you've ever seen them, believe me. I invented these a long time ago.



I made them again. Back in 2011. These are the photos of a page that I just now updated.

8 comments:

ndspinelli said...

I would eat many of those fingers.

Rabel said...

Now do penis cookies. You're halfway there already.

Do it for Trooper.

ricpic said...

"Now do penis cookies."

With balls?

Rabel said...

No, no, no. That would be over doing it. But I bet Chip could whip out some killer rum balls.

Rabel said...

A search shows that the Chipper has done crab balls, salmon balls, matzo balls, tuna balls, chicken balls, peach balls (fuzzy), ice balls, dough balls, cheese balls, cod balls, meat balls, rice balls, and zucchini balls.

But no rum balls. Yet.

Rabel said...

That took 15 minutes out of my life.

It also made me hungry.

Rabel said...

Speaking of balls, the medical profession, at least in my neck of the woods, sucks donkey balls.

Big nasty donkey balls.

Which are not on the menu at La Maison Chipareaux...

ampersand said...

They're creepy and they're cookie.