Baker's Dozen: A Batch of Halloween Links!

Happy Halloween!

A cultural history of candy. (Smithsonian Magazine)

What does Mellowcreme pumpkin think of Candy Corn? Find out here. (CakeSpy)

A brief history of candy corn. (CakeSpy)

The history of the jack o' lantern. (History.com)

Meringue skulls! (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

America is addicted to PSL. Hilarious audio file! (Bob & Tom)

Pairing wine with Halloween candy. (Neatorama)

Happy Challah-ween! A Jewish tradition meets Halloween candy. (Tablet Magazine)

Fun infographic of pumpkin facts. (Sparefoot blog)

Cute pug Halloween costumes. You're welcome. (BuzzFeed)

Use up your leftover halloween candy like this. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

Pan de Muerto is a classic day after Halloween treat, for Day of the Dead. Why not try Frida Kahlo's recipe? (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

What's the best Halloween candy? (ET Online)

What kind of Halloween candy do you give out and what does it say about you? (Post Grad Problems)

Book of the week: Sweet Treats for the Holidays: Edible Creations for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and More. I will be talking a lot more about this adorable book, but for right now: BUY IT.

Trick or Sweet: 33 Amazing Halloween Recipes

Halloween is all about sweets, right? And costumes, I guess. But I am most concerned about the sweets.

Here is a collection of 33 (cos that's how old I am this year) Halloween recipes that are bound to make it a year of trick or SWEET for sure!

1. Mega fun-size candy bar.

What happens when you melt together a bunch of fun-size candy bars to make a mega mass of chocolatey goodness? Find out here. (CakeSpy)

2. Candy corn pecan pie.

What could make pecan pie even sweeter? How 'bout a nice serving of candy corn? (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

3. Frankenstein monkey bread.

Monkey bread gets Halloween-ified with this spooky treatment. (Pillsbury)

4. Candy corn cookie cake.

It looks like a pie, but this spy knows the truth: it's a cookie coated with candy corn! (Culinary Concoctions by Peabody)

5. Candy corn cookies.

This clever adaptation of Kaleidoscope cookies is sweet and cute. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

6. Homemade mellowcreme pumpkins.

Because the homemade version blows store-bought out of the water! (CakeSpy for Craftsy)

7. Candy corn boston cream pie. 

Even fancy desserts like to play dress-up on Halloween. (CakeSpy)

8. Cake baked in a pumpkin.

Are you still eating cakes baked in pans? Not this month, sucker! Make yours in a pumpkin for Halloween. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

9. Microwaved halloween candy.

How do different treats fare when put in the microwave at high power? (CakeSpy)

10. Glow in the dark buttercream.

Illuminate your treats--um, literally. (CakeSpy for Craftsy)

11. Pumpkin bread.

Plain and simple. In case you like more wholesome treats, no tricks. (CakeSpy)

12. Homemade candy corn.

An awesome DIY version of everyone's favorite Halloween tricolor triangles! (Shauna Sever via CakeSpy!)

13. Creamy Candy Bar Sauce.

It's just such a good idea. (the Kitchn)

14. Candy corn Nanimo bars.

Nanaimo bars like to get dressed up for Halloween, too! (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

15. Zombie graveyard cake.

Make a ghoulish cake for people, not zombies! No brains included in the ingredients. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

16. Deep fried halloween candy. 

Take Halloween candy...and deep-fry it. Like, whoa. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

17. Homemade halloween oreos.

They have orange filling = instant Halloween! (Smells Like Home)

18. Scaredy-cat brownies.

Oreos become cute cats on this adorable brownie presentation. (Martha Stewart)

19. Candy corn and spider web cake pops.

She's the queen of cute cake pops, and these ones are a good example of just why she's considered royalty. (Bakerella)

20. Creamed candy corn.

Yes, I went there. You'll like it more than you think you will, I promise. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

21. Candy corn milk.

If creamed candy corn is too thick, perhaps you will like the easy drinking quality of candy corn infused milk.(CakeSpy)

22. Candy corn cupcakes.

These are just adorable: tricolor delights of cake! (Chocolate Moosey)

23. Glittery pumpkin cupcakes.

Add a little glitz and plenty adorableness to a Halloween party with these dazzling cupcakes. (Real Simple)

24. Candy corn tuxedo cake.

I don't know if I can express how worthy this is of clicking over to see. It's truly stunning. --> (Sprinkle Bakes)

25. Pumpkin Pie Milkshake.

I say it's appropriate through all of the pumpkin holidays: Halloween thru Thanksgiving. (CakeSpy) 

26. Crescent witch hats.

These crescent witch hats are not only cute, but they're easy. Really! (Pillsbury for CakeSpy)

27. Ghost cupcakes.

These are ghoulish, but the taste is all sweet thanks to an enrobing of white chocolate! (CakeSpy)

28. Brownie spider web cake.

Yummy, easy, cute, Halloween-y, and brownies are included. What more do you need? (Heather's French Press)

29. Peanut butter haystacks.

It's the eyes that make them look like little monsters. Delicious little monsters, that is. (The Girl Who Ate Everything)

30. Candy corn upside down cake.

Like pineapple upside-down cake, but replace "pineapple" with "candy corn". Yes indeed. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

31. Halloween fudge.

It's not only super-sweet, but also highly adorable. (Crazy For Crust)

30. Halloween jell-o Jigglers.

These are amazingly easy to make, and they will make everyone happy when you serve them. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

31. Candy corn popcorn balls.

Like popcorn balls, but with the added Halloween joy of candy corn. Hooray! (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

32. Bell pepper jack o'lanterns.

This savory treat is allowed because they LOOK so sweet (figuratively, of course). Promise me you'll check 'em out. (itsyummi.com)

33. Leftover halloween candy pie. 

It's awful and awesome all at once. Just like a horror movie. Gulp. (CakeSpy for Serious Eats)

Cute Fall Recipe: Crescent Witch Hats

Photo: PillsburyCrescent rolls? Great, most times of the year. But around Halloween, something more festive is in order! My favorite pick is these cute "Crescent Witch Hats" recipe which Pillsbury was kind enough to let me share here.

Not only are these incredibly easy to make but they pack an adorable punch. See for yourself:

Crescent Witch Hats

Ingredients

• 1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
• 1/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 teaspoons powdered sugar or unsweetened baking cocoa

Procedure

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Separate dough into 8 triangles.
2. Sprinkle a heaping teaspoon of chocolate chips on wide end of crescent triangle, and roll over once to form brim of hat.
3. Form the rest of the crescent triangle into hat shape. Repeat for remaining crescent triangles. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
4. Using fine mesh strainer, sprinkle crescent hats with powdered sugar or cocoa; serve warm.

Ghost Cutout Cookies: Doctored Cookie Mix

Photo: PillsburyI was super psyched when Pillsbury sent me their latest batch of Halloween-themed crafts, because while I'm sure it wasn't their primary goal, they actually ended up answering a question I've had for a long time:

Can you doctor refrigerated sugar cookie dough to make cutout cookies?

I've long wished it was so, because it would be so easy to test out decorating ideas if you could whip up a quick batch of cookies from a tube. But typically, the ones you buy spread too much to hold their shape.

In this clever recipe, the sugar cookie dough is fortified with additional flour to help them hold their shape, which then makes them the perfect canvas for decorating--around this time of year, these ghost designs are an awfully clever and cute use!

Here's the recipe.

Ghost Cutout Cookies

Courtesy Pillsbury

Ingredients

• 1 roll Pillsbury refrigerated sugar cookies
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 container (1 lb) vanilla creamy ready-to-spread frosting
• Black decorating icing, as desired

Procedure

1. Heat oven to 350°F. In medium bowl, break up cookie dough; thoroughly work in flour. Work with half of dough at a time, refrigerating remaining dough until needed.
2. On work surface sprinkled with flour, roll dough 1/4 inch thick. Cut with floured 2 1/2- to 3-inch ghost-shaped cookie cutter. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Repeat with remaining dough.
3. Bake 9 to 12 minutes or until cookies are set and edges just begin to brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in small microwavable bowl, microwave frosting uncovered on High 10 to 15 seconds or until easier to smooth onto cookie.
4. Frost and decorate cookies with black icing as desired, using photo as a guide.

Candy is Dandy: Candy Corn Milk Recipe

Some days, you're all "Oh, I love eating organic and stuff. Let's go to Whole Foods and get our gluten-free on!"

But other days, you're like "eff everything and everyone. All I feel like doing is mainlining some candy corn."

Okay, so maybe that exact thing has never happened to you. But it has happened to me. And there is no quicker or more enjoyable way to mainline that candy corn sugary goodness straight to your system than via candy corn milk. So in case you ever have felt this way, or ever do in the future, here's an extremely useful recipe for Candy Corn Milk to keep at the ready.

The idea formed in this way. At Momofuku, they've built a brand around what to many of us is a byproduct (albeit a delicious one): cereal milk. So I found myself thinking, when faced with half a bag of candy corn left over after I made a spectacular pie which will be featured soon on Serious Eats...

CakeSpy to self: "Why don't I make this into Candy Corn Milk?"

Self back to CakeSpy: "Fantastic idea! Let's do it!"

I treated the official Cereal Milk (tm) recipe as my North Star when creating this recipe. I didn't toast the candy corn (don't be stupid! It would melt!) but I did the steeping and straining as specified in the recipe. Then, I transferred the mixture to jars, so I could readily reach for candy corn milk any time I was feeling low. This stuff has enough sugar to give you pep even on the most Monday of Mondays, or any otherwise somewhat low energy or gloomy day. So it's a perfect fall food! 

If you're feeling naughty and know something about cocktails, I suppose it might make a nice addition to a Halloween drink. But I don't know so much, so I guess I will just drink it straight. If you were so inclined, I believe this recipe could rock your sugary world if you used it as your milk to put on cereal, or served it alongside a bowl of creamed candy corn.

Why don't you join me?

Candy Corn Milk - adapted from Momofuku's Cereal Milk (tm)

• 1 cup candy corn
• 2 cups cold milk
• 1/8 tsp salt

Bowls, and a fine mesh seive or strainer, and jars or a jug to store the finished milk

Note: As with cereal milk (tm), taste your candy corn milk after you make it. if you want it a little sweeter, add some brown sugar. if you want it more mellow, add a splash of fresh milk and a pinch of salt.  

Place the candy corn in a bowl. Pour the milk right on top.

Let steep for 20 minutes at room temperature. The milk will start to change color.

Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, collecting the milk in a medium bowl. the milk will drain off quickly at first, then become thicker toward the end of the straining process.

Use the back of a spoon or spatula to get all the tasty thick gooey milk out. Don't be too forceful, because you don't want to jam the melty candy corn bits into your strainer (big pain to clean out).

Give it a whisk, adding the salt at this point. Store in a pitcher or in mason jars (that's what I did), refrigerated, for up to a week.

Note: this recipe also works with mellowcreme pumpkins. 

Candy Corn Muffins Recipe

I find corn muffins to be an exceedingly lovable food, especially when they contain fat kernels of corn. But since October is prime time for candy, I wondered—what might happen if I swapped real corn for candy corn?

Well, since I have now done it, I can tell you that depending on how you want to look at it, the result is either awful or awesome. Points for awful: the candy corn melts and forms a sticky, sugary well at the bottom of the muffin cup, making it sort of the muffin equivalent of a mullet: business on the top, party on the bottom. Points for awesome: well, actually, now that I think of it, pretty much the same. The candy corn definitely brings these muffins into dessert or sweet snack territory. So for those moments when the slightly gritty texture and light sweetness of a corn muffin strike you as entirely too healthy and simply won't satisfy your sweet tooth, go for the candy gold with these muffins.

Candy Corn Muffins

Makes 12

• 1 cup (about 4 1/4 ounces) flour
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cup (about 10 ounces) milk
• 1/3 cup (5 tablespoons) butter, melted
• 1 cup candy corn

Procedure

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat the oven to 400°F. Either line a muffin tin with paper liners, or generously grease each cup.  
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.  
3. In another large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and butter. Stir well.  
4. Using a wooden spoon, stir the wet mixture into the dry, taking care to only mix until the entire mixture is incorporated. Overmixing leads to leaden, hockey puck-like muffins.  
5. Gently fold in the candy corn, making sure it is evenly distributed. 6 Fill each of the cups about 3/4 of the way full. You should be able to fill 12 cups.  
6. Place the filled muffin tin on top of a cookie sheet (the candy corn may bubble and drip over the sides; this will keep your oven clean). Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden on top. Take care when removing the muffins, as the candy corn may have bubbled over and this sweet mixture is quite hot.  
7. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.

13 Ways to Mess with Candy Cor

Creamed Candy Corn!First things first. Last week I offered to give away a copy of my masterpiece entitled CakeSpy Presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life. To enter to win, I asked people which they preferred: Candy corn or Mellowcreme Pumpkins.

Well, the winner, Becky S. from Plainfield, IL chose candy corn, and says that crazy as it sounds she eats each piece color by color.

Congratulations Becky!

And this got me thinking how over the years I have messed with candy corn in quite a few ways. Here's a roundup to give you some ideas for how to get downright mischievous with maize--of the sugary sort. Enjoy!

Candy Corn Nanaimo Bars.

Put it all in a pie crust with other Halloween candy and make Leftover Halloween Candy Pie.

Enjoy candy corn in the morning with Candy Corn Muffins.

Make popcorn balls.

Deep-fry it.

Make some tricked-out Krispie Treats!

Celebrate it by making Candy Corn shaped cookies!

Creamed Candy Corn (pictured top)

Make tricolor cookies.

Candy Corn Upside-Down Cake.

Make this delicious Candy Corn Boston Cream Pie recipe.

Of course, you could always also make your OWN candy corn! The recipe is in my book.

Trick or Sweet: Candy Corn Upside Down Cake

Recently, I asked my favorite Pineapple Upside-Down Cake recipe a serious question: "What would you like to be for Halloween this year?".

After considering various options, such as Doughnut Upside-Down Cake, Tarte Tatin, and various other options for the inverted dessert, we decided to go with something festive: Candy Corn Upside-Down Cake.

It was simple enough to do: just substitute candy corn for the pineapple requested in the original recipe. But what happened when I baked it up was a surprise: the brown sugar and butter topping fused with the melted candy corn to form some sort of unholy, monstrous Halloween caramel-sugar topping, which dripped back into the cake when inverted. The result? The entire buttery cake tasted like it had been basted in candy corn. And if you're a candy corn lover, that might just be a beautiful thing.

Even Unicorn agrees!

Candy Corn Upside Down Cake

9 servings

• 1/3 cup (about 5 tablespoons) butter, plus 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened and divided
• 2/3 cup (about 6 ounces) packed light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups candy corn
• 1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (about 7 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk (whole or 2 percent)

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the butter in a 9-inch square baking pan, and set it in the oven until melted (it is fine to do this as the oven preheats). Remove the pan from the oven and gently tilt so that the butter coats the entire bottom of the pan. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the butter. Sprinkle candy corn evenly on top.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, mixing until incorporated. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, in 2 to 3 additions, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl with each addition. Beat on low speed until fully incorporated. Pour the batter into the pan, taking care not to dislodge the carefully planted candy corn.  
4. Set a cookie tray under the cake in the oven, in case the candy bubbles or drips. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, 45 to 50 minutes.  
5. Immediately place a heatproof serving plate upside down over the pan; in one swift, sure motion, flip the plate and pan over so that the cake is now on the plate. Leave the pan in place for several minutes so the gooey mixture can drip down over the cake. After the dripping is done, lift off the pan. Serve still slightly warm. Store, loosely covered, at room temperature.

Sweet Leftovers: 10 Things to do With Leftover Halloween Candy

It's the most wonderful time of the year: that magical day after Halloween where all of the candy is available for dramatically reduced prices, and it's still fairly plentiful in your Halloween bag--that is to say, it's even possible that you've got a surplus. So with that sweet excess in mind, here are some suggestions for what to do with your leftover Halloween candy:

Eat it (duh).

Deep-fry it.

Make candy corn into creamed candy corn.

Make popcorn balls.

Bake it into a cheesecake!

Put it in a blender with a scoop of ice cream and half a cup of cream: Halloween Leftover Milkshake!

Use it to stuff cupcakes.

Make Nanaimo Bars!

Melt it into hot chocolate.

Put it all in a pie crust and make Leftover Halloween Candy Pie.

 ...or, you could just forget it all and make some Pan de Muerto.

Creepy Cute: Zombie Graveyard Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

Zombies don't eat cake—they eat people's brains. But this Halloween, here's a way to turn the tables: Zombie Graveyard Cake.

This is just about the tastiest graveyard you'll ever come across. Starting with a generous amount of grass green-tinted frosting, the cake is then lined with cookie crumbles to resemble the residual grave-escape dirt, dotted with cookie "graves", and decorated with zombie cutout cake picks (printable illustrations to cut out can be found here) to form a delightful dessert that is creepy and cute all at once.

For the full entry, visit Serious Eats!

Boo-Meringues: Meringue Skulls Recipe for Serious Eats

What do you get when you combine spooky skulls and sweet meringues?

Boo-meringues, of course!

If you need a moment to groan at that joke, I completely understand. But what's no joke is that these ghoulish meringues are simple to make, but even more fun to serve: personalize your skulls with funny faces to add some sweet charm to your Halloween fete.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Pop and Corn: Candy Corn Popcorn Balls Recipe for Serious Eats

Legend has it that Candy Corn is named for its coloring, which is inspired by the gradient of a kernel of corn. Sweet as this story may be, I've got to squint really hard to see the resemblance.

Nonetheless, I'm happy to bring the iconic tricolor treat together with popped kernels of its namesake, in the form of Candy Corn Popcorn Balls. These sweet marshmallow-based popcorn balls work beautifully when studded with candy corn; adding an extra shake of salt makes for a sweet, salty, crunchy, crispy, sticky, and overall pretty irresistible fall treat.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Trick or Sweet: Mellowcreme Pumpkin Shaped Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

Candy corn may be popular, come Halloween. But I, for one, think that its cousin, the Mellowcreme Pumpkin, deserves far more love and attention. Its larger surface area makes for a chewier-textured candy, and its pumpkin shape is just so cute.

And so I'm putting these pumpkins on a pedestal—literally—in a full-sized cake form tribute to the Mellowcreme Pumpkin. The look may not be exact, but I hope you'll forgive me when you taste it: made using a pumpkin cake generously coated in tinted cream cheese frosting, this is a highly delicious homage to a second-banana Halloween sweet.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

A-Maize-Ing: Creamed Candy Corn for Serious Eats

Halloween's over, and chances are, you've got a bunch of leftover candy corn. But what to do with all those extra tricolor kernels?

Here's an idea: cream them. That is, creamed corn style.

Starting with a recipe for creamed corn, I simply revised it a little, substituting candy corn for real corn, and leaving out the pepper and spices in favor of a little pudding mix to thicken the mixture. The resulting candy corn slurry is certainly one of those dishes that straddles the line between awful and awesome: that is to say, you might just like it, but you probably wouldn't confess that to your foodie friends.

Note: It is of utmost importance that you add the candy corn after the other ingredients. Add it at the same time and you'll end up with an orange, candy corn-flavored soup because they'll melt completely!

For the full post and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Baker's Dozen: A Batch of Sweet Links

Boo! It's Halloween weekend, and therefore, I've put together a collection of mostly ghostly links for you to enjoy before you put on your costume and gorge yourself silly with candy:

Sweet skulls: Whimzkulls is a company dedicated to making cookies decorated like skulls!

DailyCandy offers up a very cute gift guide for baking enthusiasts.

The Best Chocolate Rugelach in Midtown (an exclusive from Blondie & Brownie)

Any establishment that offers a "Couture Cookies and Granola" menu is just fine by me!

Bakery lust: a London-based customer tipped me off to the beauty that is Fleet River Bakery.

What does Jell-O dress up as for Halloween? Halloween Jigglers, duh!

Because "Fun Size" is a lie: Ideas for how to put the "fun" back in "fun size".

Peanut Butter Cookie Pops: Scary-cute fun!

Things I want to eat: Choc-O-Lantern Fudge Pop-Tarts, a special edition for Halloween!

Scary delicious: Halloween treats by Jacques Torres.

Pie in the sky: Keep this one in mind for your Halloween candy leftovers.

Sweet Memories: Candy Corn Nanaimo Bars!

More Sweet Memories: Messing with leftover Halloween Candy!

Trick Or Sweet: A Look at the History of the Custom of Trick or Treating

Trick or treating. The very phrase evokes a shiver of sweet, sugary anticipation, because basically, it usually culminates in the consumption of candy.

But where on earth did this sweet tradition come from? Let's learn a bit about the history of Halloween and how it ultimately equaled candy corn overdose, shall we?

First: What is Halloween? Per the Encyclopedia,

The word comes from medieval England's All Hallows' eve (Old Eng. hallow = "saint" ). However, many of these customs predate Christianity, going back to Celtic practices associated with Nov. 1, which was Samhain , the beginning of winter and the Celtic new year. Witches and other evil spirits were believed to roam the earth on this evening, playing tricks on human beings to mark the season of diminishing sunlight. Bonfires were lit, offerings were made of dainty foods and sweets, and people would disguise themselves as one of the roaming spirits, to avoid demonic persecution.

Per this site, it is the Celts who are credited with bringing Halloween stateside:

Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrant fleeing their country's potato famine. New England added pranks like tipping over outhouses and unhinging gates to the practive of dressing up.

But what of Trick or Treating itself? From the same source cited above,

"Trick-or-treating" came from a 9th century European custom called "souling." On November 2, All Souls Day, Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes" made from bread and currants. People would offer paryers for the deceased believing it would speed up a soul's passage to heaven. The more cakes given out, the more prayers offered.

Of course, it wasn't really til the 20th century that Trick or Treating really began in earnest. Now, I'm just spitballing here, but it seems rather timely that this coincides with a large increase with commercial production of candy. Per an article I discovered on What's Cooking America,

"Sometime in the middle of the 1930s, enterprising householders, fed up with soaped windows and worse, began experimenting with a home-based variation on the old protection racket practiced between shopkeepers and Thanksgiving ragamuffins. Doris Hudson Moss, writing for American Home in 1939, told of her success, begun several years earlier, of hosting a Halloween open house for neighborhood children...The American Home article is significant because it is apparently the first time the expression "trick or treat" is used in a mass-circulation periodical in the United States...It is probably that trick-or-treating had its immediate origins in thy myriad of organized celebrations mounted by schools and civic groups across the country specifically to curb vandalism...It is the postwar years that are generally regarded as the glorious heyday of trick-or-treating. Like the consumer economy, Halloween itself grew by leaps and bounds. Major candy companies like Curtiss and Brach, no longer constrained by sugar rationing, launched national advertising campaigns specifically aimed at Halloween. If trick-or-treating had previously been a localized, hit-or-miss phenomenon, it was now a national duty." ---Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, David J. Skal [Bloomsbury:New York] 2002 (p. 52-5)

As I also learned on What's Cooking America,

After World War II, the American practice of Trick-or-Treat began in earnest. Sprawing suburban neighborhoods delighted in watching costumed boomer children "beg" from door to door. Traditional Halloween party foods (candied/toffee apples, popcorn balls, nuts) were proferred along with pre-wrapped commercial candies. Savvy candy companies capitalized on this lucrative opportunity by selling seasonal packages containing smaller sized products. "Back in the Day" (your editor trick-or-treated on Long Island in the 1960s) it was fairly usual to get little decorative halloween bags containing all sorts of things. These were assembled at home, usually composed of loose candies (candy corn, Hershey Kisses, marsmallows, MaryJanes or Tootsie Rolls, etc.), some pennies and maybe a small toy. We also carried little milk-carton shaped boxes distributed in school and said "Trick or Treat for Unicef." Beginning in 1952, UNICEF's halloween program thrives today.

As for the Fun-Size treat?

As I learned here,

The "fun size" candy bar was introduced in 1968 by the Mars candy company. The resulting "fun size" Milky Way candy bars were 25 percent lower in total calories and had 50 percent fewer calories from fat.

But knowing that doesn't change the fact that if I could, I'd go back in time and punch the inventor. Because seriously--there is nothing fun about less candy (but here are some suggestions for how to bring the "fun" back to fun size).

Have a happy, safe, and sweet Halloween!

Trick or Sweet: Peanut Butter Cookies on a Stick for Peanut Butter and Co.

CakeSpy Note: You knew I did recipes for Peanut Butter & Co., right? Here's my latest one.

There are probably foods out there that aren’t improved by being served on a stick, but none come to mind at the moment.

But which one is the most fun to serve around Halloween? My vote goes to these peanut butter cookies on a stick. They’re part trick, decorated to look like pumpkins–but they’re even more treat, with a rich, cakey texture and rich, peanut buttery flavor that is far more delicious than any fun-size candy bar could ever hope to be.

For the full entry, visit Peanut Butter & Co.!

Things That Go Wiggle In the Night: Halloween Jell-O Jigglers for Serious Eats

Around Halloween, a lot of attention is given to things that go bump in the night. But for a moment, let's consider things that wobble: the Jell-O Jiggler.

Starting with the classic recipe from the Jell-O website, it's easy to trick out these wiggly, wobbly treats in Halloween shapes for a crowd-pleasing party snack. Of course, I'd advise against handing them out to trick-or-treaters, because there's no bigger bummer than a soggy sack of candy.

For the full entry and tutorial, check out Serious Eats!

Fry, Baby: Deep-Fried Halloween Candy for Serious Eats

It's a funny thing about Halloween candy: it actually makes you hungrier. At least, that's my theory behind how the same person who can't finish off an entire candy bar can easily put away ten "fun size" candy bars or 30 mellowcreme pumpkins in one sitting.

But there's a way to bring a substantial dimension of deliciousness to your Halloween candy: deep-fry it.

That's right. Batter up your Halloween candy and fry it in hot oil, and you've got yourself little nuggets that are beyond decadent, and bound to satisfy—one or two of these morsels is more than enough.

Note: I tried a variety of Halloween candies in this experiment, including candy corn, mellowcreme pumpkins, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Twix, Kit-Kats, and Whoppers. The biggest hit by far was the Peanut butter cups.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Trick or Sweet: Candy Corn Kaleidoscope Cookies for Serious Eats

It's October, and you know what that means: it's officially candy corn season.

But if you appreciate the iconic look more than the mellowcreme taste of the stuff, here's a solution: a reconfiguration of the Kaleidoscope Cooky (yes, cooky) from the Betty Crocker's Cooky Book, made to resemble the tricolor confection. Lightly crumbly, very buttery, and extremely crowd-pleasing, these cookies are a totally sweet tricked-out treat.

Note: This recipe is designed to feed a crowd; I have in the past halved it with fine results. Also, if shaping the dough into the candy corn shape seems too fussy, they're just as festive as Halloween-hued rounds.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!