Step by step
With a knife, cut the dough into small pieces and either roll them into ball shapes with your hands or keep them elongated, in the shape of a bean.
Tips
Two tips: you can omit the butter and the ‘beans’ will be more crisp. And, secondly, you can also use icing sugar instead of caster sugar.
Trivia
Pellegrino Artusi also discusses different versions of the ‘Beans of the Dead’ in his kitchen writings.