OH dear, this is the week of the trick or treat door bell ringing. So as not to disappoint the children I am giving a recipe for biscuit fingers with bright red nails so that you can hand out some ghoulish treats and really surprise your little visitors.
This trick will either frighten the life out of them and they won’t come back next year or they will love them so much that they will be straight round first call.
Try it and see. It is also fun to put a carved-out pumpkin in the window, lit with a candle, but what to do with the vegetable the next day?
Well, here is a fun thing to do with the pumpkin seeds that you have discarded. The flesh can then be roasted like potatoes and served as a vegetable.

FINGER BISCUITS
This mixture is easy to mould into finger shapes and then the painted almonds transform it into looking like the living thing. Makes 10 to 15 fingers

Ingredients
50g softened butter;
50g caster sugar;
One small beaten egg;
150g self-raising flour;
One teasp finely grated lemon rind;
25g ground almonds;
25g flaked almonds;
Red colouring.

Method
Choose the best-shaped almonds for fingernails and then paint them on one side with red food colouring. Leave to dry.
Preheat the oven to 200C, or gas mark six.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and then add the flour, lemon rind and ground almonds beating well again.
Using your hands, make the mixture into a ball. Tear off small amounts and roll out to finger length and width. Lay on a greased baking tray and put a ‘fingernail’ in the end of each ‘finger’. Using a knife, mark three lines half way down the biscuit to mark the joint. Continue until the mixture is used up and then bake in the oven for about 12 minutes or until risen and pale brown. When cooked, leave to cool and then store in an airtight tin.

ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS
These are delicious with drinks or just very good nibbles whenever a hunger pang looms.

Ingredients
One Pumpkin, top removed and reserved.

Method
Preheat the oven 180C, gas four. Scoop out the seeds from the pumpkin and put into a large bowl of water. Using your hands rub the seeds until all the threads have been removed.
Put the seeds on a tea towel to dry.
Put the seeds into a bowl and add one desp olive oil and a generous dash of Worcestershire sauce. Mix well and then tip onto a baking tray and spread out.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until they have turned a good brown. Shake the tin once or twice while cooking to give a good even colour. Serve cold.
Mrs Sujatha from Islington wrote to say that her strawberry jam had over-cooked and set too much and was there anything I could suggest to make it spreadable.
I would suggest that it can’t be reversed but it could be cut into slices or scooped out and put at the bottom of a rice pudding or Bakewell tart in the making or it could be cut or spooned into small balls and rolled in dried coconut and made into sweets.
It could also be used like Quince jelly and served with hard cheese.
Also Philomena, from Highbury, wants to know where to get a good seed grinder as she does not have the time to chew her sunflower seeds.
I suggest that she either buys a baby electric blender (John Lewis stock Kenwood ones), uses a pestle and mortar or quicker still goes to a health food shop and buys sunflower butter.

Clare’s Kitchen
41 Chalcot Road
Primrose Hill, NW1
Tel: 020 7586 8433
www.clareskitchen.co.uk