To get the shape of a finger, take a piece of foil and wrap it around one of your fingers. It can be any finger that you want. When you place your finger on the foil, be sure to rest it in the center of the foil and pull the foil up around the finger; mash the foil onto your finger. Slide and pull the foil off of your finger for the pattern. Leave the open end of the pattern open and continue making finger foil patterns until you have enough for all of your guests-with a few to spare.
Make your cake batter. Fill the open end of the finger pattern with cake batter. Prop each finger against a cake rack that is resting in a baking pan. Or if you don’t have a cake rack, you can sit a small baking pan within a larger baking pan to use as a prop for each finger. Make sure to prop each finger with the open end towards you, to keep the batter from spilling out. Bake the fingers until the cake inside is done. It shouldn’t take long. Remove the fingers from the oven and let them cool.
Once the cake has cooled unwrap the fingers; remove the foil.
Place the fingers on one big serving dish, or individually on a dish for each guest.
With a toothpick or fork prong, trace a fingernail in each individual cake. Paint the fingernail in with pink icing. The pink will be a graceful contrast with the red, which will be used to accentuate the detachment of the finger from the body. If you don’t like pink you can use any color that you wish to paint the nail.
Dress the fingers up with red glaze, glaze that has red food coloring added; drizzle or pour it on, which will make the fingers bloody. Glaze is a much better effect than using icing since glaze is much thinner and runs similar to blood.
Serve to guests.
Another take on bloody-finger cakes is chocolate fingers. As long as you have finger patterns made, you can pour melted warm chocolate in the open end for chocolate fingers. Rest the open end of the fingers on a baking pan or a cake rack. Let the chocolate cool before removing the foil. Etch in the nail with a toothpick or fork prong; paint the nail with icing or leave as is. For a more detailed finger look, scratch in the wrinkles and lines of a finger using the toothpick or fork prong. Glaze the chocolate finger in red if you want it to be bloody.
Serve to guests.
Chocolate fingers are lovely bonus fingers that can be served up in addition to the bloody-finger cakes.