Halloween may not be the most Australian celebration but we have certainly embraced this ghoulish tradition. I decided to give some of my Halloween food an Aussie slant with a Severed Cheese Finger in meat pie.
Growing up I’m sure everyone has heard the urban myths about a “friend of a friend” who found a severed finger in their meat pie. The story always ends with the victim receiving a years supply of meat pies as compensation for their suffering.
Well after watching some of the Heston cooking series, I decided I needed to recreate that urban myth for Halloween.
I toyed with a few  variations on the theme. Maybe a pot pie with the severed fingers trying to escape? Or perhaps a party pie with a finger poking out.  In the end I decided to go with the good old traditional meat pie.
I love the bakery bags motto “You’ll get more …..” its almost like a warning!
My meat pies were a surprise for the children’s lunch so I just bought a bakery pie. If you are serving these at a Halloween dinner party, you could make smaller pies pies from scratch.
If you were having a “finger food” Halloween party you could make the severed cheese fingers ahead of time and simply lift the pie lid slightly and insert the finger.
To add a little realism I felt we need to add a bit of bone crunching. I know its slightly evil but I bought some pretzels, and added them to the centre of the finger whilst filling the mould.
The crunch you get as you bite through the first knuckle really does make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!
The syringe full of blood was a ghoulish afterthought. Obviously you need sauce with a “good old Aussie pie,” and I thought a syringe of blood would fit the scene.
I wanted to paint a complete story with the final picture so I asked the local pie shop for some pie bag to serve the pies on.
Severed Cheese Finger in Meat Pie
Ingredients
- 30 gm butter
- 30 gm plain flour
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1 cup grated cheese
- 15 pretzels
- 15 flaked almonds toasted
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan.
- Add the flour and combine the two. Cook the butter and flour until it becomes dry and lighter in colour.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and add 1/4 of the milk stirring well.
- Once the mixture is smooth add another quarter of the milk and stir well.
- Return the saucepan to a low heat and add the remaining milk whilst stirring.
- Add the cheese to the mixture and continue to stir until the cheese has melted and the mixture is smooth and thickened.
- Place the hot cheese sauce into a piping bag.
- Using a chocolate finger mould place an almond slice in each of the finger nail positions.
- Pipe the cheese sauce into the moulds. Make sure to only half fill each finger.
- Press the pretzel into each finger.
- Top the fingers up with cheese sauce until full.
- Place the moulds in the freezer to set.
- Once the fingers have set remove them from the moulds.
- Place fingers on a serving dish in the fridge until ready to use, or in an airtight container.
The reaction I got from the kids made this little trick worth the effort.
When the severed fingers came up to room temperature they were soft and fleshy, they actually felt like real fingers. Very realistic. The best thing is the recipe make 15 fingers so I can hide them in a multitude of other dishes in the lead up to Halloween.
Oh and the fingers are quite tasty, so they could be served as finger food on a platter just on the pretzel stick.
Do you like doing quirky foods leading up to Halloween? Check out these eyeballs I put in the kids lunchboxes in the lead up to Halloween last year.