Severed Hand Cheese Ball Wrapped in Prosciutto

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This week my Canasta group celebrated our 5th year of Halloween fun and I have to say everyone outdid themselves with both outrageous food and costumes.

Yours truly went as a zombie chef and made some ghoulish treats including this Severed Hand Cheese Ball wrapped in Prosciutto and dripping in “blood”. You can also make this as a severed head, but somehow I thought the hand with one finger removed was gorier.

The blood is a nice touch and very easy to make. Mix 3/4 cup light corn syrup; 1/4 cup warm water; 1/2 tsp. red food coloring; 5 drops of blue; 2 drops of green and 1 Tbsp. cornstarch. Shake well. Ready to “serve”. If it is not thick enough, add a little more cornstarch.

Rough up the end of the wrist a bit to give the effect of sawing. Once you have formed the hand brush on blood at the wrist; remove one finger (I chose the thumb) add blood to the wound, and stick a knife in the center of the hand and add blood there, too. The prosciutto gives the hand a very authentic look of mottled skin. It’s both grotesque and delicious!

I did cheat and bought a mold on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002IT2IDS?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title), which made forming the hand much easier. Alternatively you can trace your own hand on parchment paper and use that as a guide to form the hand. Or form by hand (pun intended) into a hand!

Use your favorite cheese ball recipe. I used 28 oz. (3 1/2 8 oz. pkgs.) softened cream cheese (it is a big, burly hand from someone who obviously did something very bad); 6 oz. Montamore smooth and creamy Cheddar; 6 oz. Jalapeno Havarti, which helps soften and bind the mix; 3 oz. Gouda; 3 oz. Parmesan; 1/3 cup finely diced sun dried tomatoes to give the look of flecks of blood in the flesh;

pinch of cayenne pepper, 2 tsp. Worchester sauce and 1/2 tsp. garlic powder. I loved this combination of cheeses, but next time I would add more cayenne.

Mix all together very well either by hand or using an electric mixer. If the cream cheese is softened to room temperature it will be much easier to mix. Place the cheese mixture in the fridge to firm up a bit or I made the cheese mixture the day ahead and then brought again to room temperature to mold the hand the day of serving.

Lightly coat the hand mold with cooking spray and then line with plastic wrap. Do not worry if the plastic does not sit tightly as once you add the prosciutto and cheese mixture, which you can squish into the fingers it will fill in the mold. Plus the whole hand is wrapped with prosciutto so it smooths out any wrinkles in the plastic wrap.

Lay strips of prosciutto into the mold with prosciutto extending beyond the mold so you can wrap around the bottom of the hand. The prosciutto does not need to completely cover the bottom of the hand. Make sure to leave some gaps between the layers.

If you made the cheese mixture day before, bring to room temperature before forming. Using your fingers press the cheese mixture firmly into the mold to fill each finger and chill again in the fridge. Finally, if you are not serving right away, bring the hand out of the fridge about 1 hour before serving to soften the cheese. It unmolds very easily as you simply lift out the plastic wrap. Cut off any excess cheese to make the hand look more realistic. Apply the blood and you are ready to serve!

What other gruesome treats did our feast include…

We had some bloody chicken wings, ghostly bruschetta, mummy hotdogs, potato salad infested with spiders, a bat salad and nasty eyeballs.

And here is the parade of costumed beauties…

Bonnie, Carmen and Dianna…

Jan, Joyce and Kathi…

 

Sinfor, Moi and the whole gang!

(Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Another fun and fabulous day!

And I concluded my Halloween festivities today with a workshop at the Tubac Center for the Arts making Sugar Skulls with my good friend, Dorita Pina. What a blast we had creating these skulls!