"Large pretzels covered in white candy coating that just happen to look like witch fingers. They'll be perfect for your next holiday party!"
One of the best parts of Halloween? You can get away with all sorts of creepy stuff. Take nibbling on a witch’s finger, for example. You’d probably get funny looks in July, but in October? Totally okay! And everyone wants to know where they can get their on witch finger to eat!
Witch Finger Pretzels have been making the rounds this Halloween season, and I couldn’t stay away from them, either. The recipe looked too easy and too cool not to give it a shot. The only downside I’ve noticed is that the instructions already out there are a bit vague (such as missing exact measurements, how many pretzels it makes, how much food coloring to use, etc) so I made sure to write out the specifics so it’ll be a little easier for everyone else to make their own witch fingers.
Overall the recipe turned out great, especially considering this was my first attempt at getting artistic with food. Well, my first decorated pretzel was a little rough, but that’s okay – I needed a victim to taste test, anyway. But after that one practice run and I was able to decorate the rest with ease. And seriously, if I can make these, then anyone can. Witch Fingers will definitely be on the menu for our upcoming Halloween poker party!
Ingredients:
- 10 pretzel rods
- 1 cup white candy melts or white chocolate chips
- sliced almonds plain or roasted
- food coloring green and blue
Tools You’ll Need:
- Medium mixing bowl (microwave safe)
- Spatula
- Parchment paper
- Toothpick or a knife (for carving the knuckles)
Instructions:
To start off, add the candy melts to a microwave safe mixing bowl and follow the directions on the bag for melting the candy until it’s nice and smooth.
Next up, add the food coloring to the melted candy. To get the same color as me, it took 16 drops of green food coloring and 2 drops of blue food coloring. I would still recommend gradually adding the food coloring just to be sure you don’t somehow end up with different results than I did.
Get your parchment paper ready by laying a large piece on your counter or on a cookie sheet.
Take one of the pretzels and dip the end into the melted candy. Using the spatula, scoop up some of the candy and gently tap it along the side of the pretzel. Continue with turning the pretzel and patting on more candy until it’s completely covered, leaving one end of the pretzel free of candy (so there’s a “stem” to hold on to). Lift the pretzel up about an inch and gently shake it, letting the extra globs of coating fall off the end, then place the covered pretzel on the parchment paper.
Grab a fingernail-looking sliced almond and gently press it to the top of the covered pretzel. Little tip: you can let the almond hang far off the end of the pretzel (like long finger nails) but I found that the almonds were more prone to pop off that way, even after the candy has dried. If you want to be safe (especially if you’ll be transporting the pretzels), place most of the almond on the pretzel.
Repeat these steps until all the pretzels are drying on the parchment paper.
From here, you have two options:
- You can use the toothpick (or knife) and carve out the knuckles on the pretzels while the candy is still a little soft. The good part about doing this now is that you won’t have to clean up shavings from carving hard candy. The bad part is that I found the wet candy moved too much, smudging and exposing too much of the pretzel underneath. You can test it out near the end of the candy coating to see if you like how the carving works on wet candy.
- OR you can place the pretzels in the freezer for 5-10 minutes, hardening the candy. This means that when you carve the knuckles you’ll have to press a little harder and clean up all the shavings (just takes a little patience), but I personally I preferred the look from carving the solid candy. It’s up to you.
As I mentioned above, I opted to freeze the candy and then carve, so I had some shavings to clean up. They came off easily by either gently shaking the pretzel or using the toothpick to flick them away.
For the knuckles I carved a deep top circle, a deep bottom circle, a deep line through the middle, and then some faint lines above the middle line.
Place the fingers in the freezer for about 30 minutes to ensure that the candy is set.
Now they’re ready to eat! And to be festively creepy while doing it.
And that’s it – you’re done!
Did you try this recipe? Do you have a suggestion or correction? Leave a comment & tell me about it!
Witch Finger Pretzels
Ingredients
- 10 pretzel rods
- 1 cup white candy melts or white chocolate chips
- sliced almonds plain or roasted
- food coloring green and blue
Instructions
- In a microwave save bowl, melt the candy wafers per package instructions. Add food coloring as desired and stir until smooth.
- Dip the end of the pretzel into the mixing bowl and use a spatula to scoop up candy and pat it along the pretzel. Continue until whole pretzel is covered, leaving one end of the pretzel clean of candy for the stem.
- Place candy covered pretzel on a sheet of parchment paper. Select a fingernail-looking almond slice and gently press to the end of the pretzel that's coated in candy.
- Repeat the steps for the rest of the pretzels until all are covered in candy with an almond attached.
- Place pretzels in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. Once candy is hard, use a toothpick or knife to carve out knuckles in the candy. Shake off excess candy shavings.
- Place in freezer for another 30 minutes so candy fully hardens. Keep frozen until serving.