WITCHES FINGERS FROM PIZZA DOUGH

Witches fingers are fun Halloween finger food. Halloween is everybody’s favourite spooky season and everybody must know witches cookies. But this recipe is actually for the savoury version made from pizza dough.

I have been browsing Pinterest for last two weeks and I loved these Witches fingers cookies. My daughter was thrilled when she saw that, so we decided to make them, but with a little twist.

Usually this witches fingers are made either from pretzels sticks or sugar cookie dough. But I decided to experiment a bit because I was searching for savoury flavoured finger food. I opted for pizza dough and added cheddar cheese inside the dough, and it came out fantastic.

I am using pre-made pizza dough in this recipe, which I had previously frozen from an older batch of pizza. It was fairly easy to make and of course it did cut down also on the time. But you can get a pizza dough at any grocery store and if you are not so into pizza dough, you can try using puff pastry. Puff pastry is available at the frozen food section of your grocery store.

Ingredients needed for witches fingers

• pizza dough
• cheddar cheese
• raw almonds
• small egg or garlic butter
• Few drops of food colouring

For the food colouring, you don’t necessarily need to use any. If you make your witch fingers with the natural colour of pizza dough and add some ketchup around the nail finger, it will still look spooky enough. My daughter wanted to add many colours, so it came out sort of dirty witches fingers dough, but I liked that, it looked very realistic.

You can use any kind of firm cheese, like mozzarella, cheddar or sharper cheeses like Gruyère. Cheese should be cut in slices. Already shredded cheese is harder to keep inside the dough. If you don’t feel like using cheese, not a problem. These witches fingers can be savoured with different spices and herb, like butter garlic. You can also dip them in salsa or cheese sauce if you’d like to.

Basically, these witches fingers are like bread sticks made from pizza dough. When you take them out of the oven, they are so crispy from outside and fluffy from inside filled with that cheese yum just delicious. A little almond as a nail is not only very classic for witches fingers, but it’s quite good as a little crisp of baked almond.

How to shape the witches fingers

The technic of rolling is very simple. Some people will roll on the wooden board, I prefer to roll it in between the palms of my hands. Always using a bit of flour, so the dough doesn’t stick to hands.

Start first with adding few drops of food colouring on the dough and kneed to dough for few minutes, so the food colouring gets absorbed. Divide the dough into 10 equal pieces and roll the dough up to 4 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Few drops of food colouring.

Cut the dough lengthwise, but don’t cut through, place the cheese stripes inside and close the dough, roll twice to reshape the dough. Make small cuts with the knife in the middle and on each side of the dough, and then push with your two fingers on each side of the dough to create knuckles.

Take an almond and push it in the dough on one of the sides. Place the withes fingers onto the baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Brush with egg wash or garlic butter and bake for 20-25 minutes in preheated oven  355F/177C .

Tips and tricks

TIP: Cut smaller pieces of dough, because even though it might seem small, it will puff in the oven. My first pieces of fingers were so big, that they looked like swollen witches fingers. They still tasted delicious, but as a look, it was weirdo puffy fingers. So I suggest  rolling finger 4 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.

I have also made brownie cupcakes and I covered them in marshmallow spider net. For the brownie cupcake recipe go here and for the marshmallow spider net, take few marshmallows and place them in small microwave bowl. Microwave fro 30 seconds and let cool for a minute.

Then take the melted marshmallow in your hands (this is were it will become sticky) and try to tear them apart with your fingers and place them over the brownie cupcakes. Once you have the marshmallow in your hands, you will get it, how sticky it gets!

More recipes

• MARSHMALLOW FRANKENSTEINS
• HALLOWEEN CUPCAKES
• PUMPKIN DONUTS
• PUFF PASTRY PEACH GALETTE
• BLACK FOREST CUPCAKES