Well, these were a bit of a failure. If you take a look at Domestic Goddess (where I found the recipe), you’ll see what I was aiming for. Unfortunately, I decided not to bother with all that waiting around for butter to soften, and used a soft butter spread instead. Whoops. I think this was the reason my fingers didn’t hold their shape and instead spread into flat monster-like fingers, rather than the creepily-realistic versions I was aiming for.

for the cookies:

1 cup butter, room temperature (real butter! real butter!)
1 cup confectioners’ sugar (I wasn’t sure what this was, and used caster sugar instead)
1/8 cup granulated sugar (I skipped this altogether)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ½ cups plain flour
¼ cup rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ cup sliced blanched almonds
1 egg white or a small amount of royal icing

In a food processor, beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add the sugars, egg and vanilla and mix well.

Add the flours, baking powder and salt and beat until completely mixed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 160C/325 F. Roll about a tablespoon of dough between your hands to form a finger shape for each cookie, leaving a larger rounded section in the middle for the knuckle. As the dough warms up and becomes softer, this becomes more difficult, so perhaps leave half the dough in the fridge while you make fingers out of the other half.

Place the fingers on a tray about an inch apart. Slightly flatten the front of each finger to create a nailbed, and brush it with a little egg white before pressing an almond slice into each one for the nail. With a small sharp knife, make three cuts in each knuckle for wrinkles.

Bake for 20 minutes or until fingers are slightly golden, and place on a rack to cool.

For a more gruesome version, you can attach the nails after the fingers are cooked with red icing, for that “I’ve been digging my way out of my grave” touch.