EGL Treats: Baked Bats & Witch’s Fingers
Chocolate Shortbread
White Chocolate Filling
Instructions
1. For the Shortbread: Place the flour in a medium bowl, sift in the cocoa and baking soda, and whisk to combine.
2. Place butter, sugar and salt in a separate bowl and cream together until fluffy.
3. Mixing on low speed, add the flour/cocoa mix in 2 additions, scraping in between. Mix until the dough just starts to come together.
4. Place a piece of plastic wrap on a work surface and place dough mix on plastic wrap. Gently knead the dough until it comes together completely. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, until firm. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 1 month.)
5. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a sheet pan with Silpats or parchment paper.
6. Roll out dough to ¼” thickness between 2 sheets of parchment paper.
7. Use cookie cutter to cut out bats or other shapes and place them one inch apart on the lined sheet pan.
8. Bake for 12 minutes, turning the pans around halfway through baking, until the cookies are fragrant, with small cracks on the surface. Cool completely before filling.
9. For the Filling: Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl and whisk together. Meanwhile, heat cream to just under a simmer.
10. Pour the cream over the melted chocolate mix and whisk to combine. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or up to 1 day, until completely chilled. Once ready, transfer to a piping bag (piping tip optional).
11. (Optional: place a small portion of the filling in a bowl and mix with a few drops of red food coloring. Place red filling in a small piping bag, set aside)
12. Decorating: Flip half of the bat cookies face side down, these will be the bottom of the sandwich cookies. Pipe small pearls of the filling around the edge of the cookie bottoms, to create a scalloped border. Fill in the border with more filling and place another bat cookie on top. (Optional: pipe two small red pearls on the top cookie for the bat’s eyes.)
Vegan Variation: Use margarine in the shortbread and 2 T non-dairy milk + 2T margarine for the filling.
Gluten Free Variation: Use Gluten-free Baking Flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill.
Almond Cookie Dough
Instructions
1. Place butter, sugars and salt in a bowl and cream together until fluffy.
2. Add the egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
3. Add flour and mix until smooth dough is formed.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 40 minutes or up to 2 days.
5. Preheat your oven to 325°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
6. Create 2 Tablespoons sized balls of dough and roll them into logs about the thickness of a pinky. Transfer logs to sheet pan, spacing 1” apart.
7. Press an almond on the tip of each log to create a “fingernail”. Pinch in the middle to create a knuckle shape. Use a small knife to create wrinkle lines in the fingers (vary the length of the lines to look more realistic).
8. Bake for 12 minutes ,turning cookies half way through, until slightly golden.
9. Let the cookies cool on the sheet, and then remove the almonds from the cookies. Add some jam in the cavities and then put the almonds back, making sure you used enough jam for them to ooze a little. You can also put some jam on the knuckles or dip the end of the fingers in jam. Any extra jam can be served with the fingers.
Vegan Variation: Use margarine and replace egg with mixture of ½ T water + 1 T cornstarch, or use GF variation.
Gluten Free Variation: Use recipe and instructions below:
1. Place butter, sugar and salt in a bowl and cream together until fluffy.
2. Add the almond extract and vanilla extract and mix until combined. Add flours and mix until crumbs form.
3. Knead dough crumbs together until a solid dough forms. Refrigerate and follow shaping/baking above.
Tools
Recipes adapted from Bouchon Bakery and Texanerin.com