Best Recipes for Leftover Halloween Candy

By Food & Wine
Updated October 05, 2017
Whether you are the parent of an adorable trick or treater, someone who stays home to give out Halloween candy to those kids, or you’re still trying to execute the challenging task of making your neighbors believe that 28-years-old is not too old to go around ringing doorbells and asking for sweets, you’re bound to end up with some extra mini Snickers and bags of candy corn. And you can only eat that excess candy straight for so long before your teeth protest. So why not transform it into something better. Here, Food & Wine’s favorite recipes to make the most of a Halloween candy haul.
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Chocolate Cake With Buttercream

Credit: Brigitte Sire
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Zoe Nathan’s coffee-spiked chocolate cake calls for cocoa nibs on top of the buttercream frosting, but her son Milo had the right idea—he replaced them with M&M’s.

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Deep Fried Candy Corn

Credit: © Amy Erickson
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Candy corn is…well, let’s just say candy corn is polarizing. One thing almost everyone, candy corn critics and apologists alike, should be able to agree on though, is that deep-frying something makes it delicious.

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Tickled Pink Paloma

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Few candies are as fun as Pop Rocks. What’s better than exploding candy on your tongue though? Exploding candy on your tongue followed by Tequila. This paloma recipe swaps Pop Rocks in for the more standard salt rim.

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Candy Corn and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Credit: David Malosh
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Sick of eating all that candy corn? Dress it up in these monster-like cookies from Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi and it will give the orange and yellow candy a second life.

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Snickers Ice Cream Milk

Credit: © David Malosh
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We know, we know, you probably plan to eat all those mini Snickers bars. But if you save a few, this Christina Tosi creation is like a milk shake, but better.

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Candy Snack Mix

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The ultimate candy mash-up recipe, this snack mix makes use of whatever you have around from 3 Musketeers to peanut butter cups and throws it all together in a sweet, salty treat that will keep in snacking all week.

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Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cookie Bars

Credit: © Tina Rupp
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Poor Heath bars don’t get the attention they deserve. But the chocolate toffee candy bars have a home as the crunchy shell of these ice cream cookie bars.

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Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
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If you’re being honest, there’s no way you or your son or daughter are going to eat those Andes mints from that house up the block that clearly failed to plan ahead. But, you can chop them up and use them in these thumbprint cookies from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.

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Ice Cream Bonbon Pops

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You can coat these ice cream pops in whatever candy you want—whoppers, Sno-Caps, even Skittles.

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10 of 15

Candy Cookies

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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These little bonbons are an excellent use for your leftover Mounds bars, assuming you still do, in fact, still feel like a nut instead.

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Finding Nemo Cocktail

Credit: © Frances Janisch
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Not only is this cocktail from Brendan Turner a good home for the extra Swedish Fish you have, it’s also a way to finally to use the blue curaçao that’s been taking up space in your liquor cabinet.

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Spotted Porcupine Cookies

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Created by Catherine Ralston when she was 11, these M&M and pretzel cookies are a little unwieldy to pick up, but man do they taste good.

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Red Velvet Cake Balls

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If you want to keep the ghostly magic going beyond October 31, these eyeball-esque cake balls are enough to creep out any dinner guests you have coming post-Halloween. The M&Ms popped in as the pupils make good use of the melt-in-your-mouth-not-in-your-hand chocolates.

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Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Cream Cheese Fluff

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We know there’s always THAT ONE HOUSE that never bothers to buy actual Halloween candy and tries to skate by on whatever they have leftover from previous holidays or previous years. If you, or your little trick or treater, is one of the unfortunate few who ends up with last year’s Christmas candy canes in a treat bag, never fear. There’s plenty to do with them, including make these whoopie pies from Ink.Well chef Michael Voltaggio.

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Spiced Candy Corn Crispies

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Ok, not technically made with candy, but in our opinion this recreation of candy corn as a Rice Krispy treat with chile powder, cumin and coriander tastes much better than the real thing.

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