Brew Up Spooktacular Witch Finger Cookies For Your Halloween Party

Once September rolls around it's hard to resist getting a start on the Halloween festivities — dreaming up your costume, decorating your house, buying all the pumpkins. You might even find yourself planning the food and beverages for your Halloween party, which will be here before you know it. While there are familiar standbys like Halloween punch with dry ice or mummy hot dogs, it's always fun to add some creepy sweet treats to the menu. It doesn't get much easier or eerier than our witch finger cookies.

Consisting of a classic sugar cookie dough made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and salt, these gruesome but tasty cookies were created by recipe developer and nutritionist Kristen Carli for Mashed. Most of the ingredients are already pantry and fridge staples, so chances are the only items you'll need to pick up are Marcona almonds for the fingernails and red decorating gel to give the appearance of blood.

The great thing about these cookies is that though they can be served at a Halloween party for adults they're kid-friendly, too. This is something that you can make together as a family for the holiday. Let the kids lead the way in coming up with spooky variations to the recipe and decorations to add to the scare factor.

Because the recipe for witch finger cookies is pretty simple as it is, it can easily be customized — your imagination (and your Halloween spirit) is the limit. Maybe you want something more natural and tasty than red decorating gel, which sometimes contains red dye 40. Switch it out for raspberry or strawberry jam. You could also dip the bottom ends of the witch fingers in the jam or frosting, which ups the gross factor a bit. Try adding green or blue food coloring, dye, or gel into the dough itself, to make zombie-witch fingers.

An alternative to almonds for the fingernails is peanut halves. For households that are nut-free, large chocolate chips, sunflower seeds, or pepitas (pumpkin seeds) are good alternatives. If nuts aren't a problem, pressing pistachios into the dough is a fun way to add warts to the fingers. You could also give your witch a mysterious ailment with cinnamon red hots or tiny M&M's. To intensify the fingernails, use black or red food coloring or dye to give them extra spooky glamor. 

We even have witch finger options for those who prefer savory and salty foods to sweet. Form the fingers with a biscuit or pizza dough and use cream cheese to stick on sliced almond, olive, or pepperoni nails. Best of all, they're perfect for dunking in a side of tomato sauce faux-blood. Don't be scared to let your Halloween imagination run wild!