Creepy Witch Fingers

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1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon almond extract)
Almond slices
Red decorating gel

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325° F. Combine dry ingredients. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla, beat in dry ingredients. Cover and refrigerate dough for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes is a long time in kid-world, so you might want to work on some Halloween crafts right now.
Working with one-quarter of the dough at a time and keeping remaining dough refrigerated, roll heaping teaspoons full of dough into finger shape for each cookie. (Tip: Long and skinny fingers look way spookier than short and fat fingers!) Press an almond firmly into one end for nail. Squeeze in center to create a knuckle shape and use a paring knife to make slashes in several places to form knuckle.
Place cookies on the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes or until pale golden. Let cool for three minutes. If desired, lift up almond and squeeze red decorator gel onto nail bed and press almond back in place so gel oozes out from underneath. This step is cool and gross but not necessary!
Remove from cookie sheet and let cool on a wire rack. Repeat with remaining dough.
Yields 3-4 dozen.
Creepy notes:You can paint the nails by using some red food coloring that’s been diluted with water and brushing it on. Or, you can color frosting red and dilute it with water, then dip the bottom of the finger in it. You can also use green frosting and make “Frankenstein Fingers”.