Candy Dish Blog

How about some fun chocolate cupcakes for Thanksgiving? Seems like a nice dessert for the kids, as well as a craft to keep those little hands busy when they want to help in the kitchen. Take a look:

Let’s see. You got your chocolate cupcakes, you got your candy corn, and you got your little candy-based googly eye things. I know you have a whole mess of candy corn leftover from Halloween. That’s the only bit of this that might be hard to do. Also the eyes, I guess, but you can find some candy discs in the baking aisle or else just use icing.

Looks like a fun thing for the young ones to do.

Turkey Cupcake by Bisayan lady.

You have not yet met Marc. He is our trusty and loyal intern from American University and he is basically here to do my bidding. At least, that is how I have been treating him. His first day, I gave him some tall boots and a shovel and told him to go hose down the oompa loompas and clean out their pens. Eventually he did well enough with all the menial tasks that we let him help write a blog post.

While shopping at drug stores such as Rite Aid, Walgreens or CVS, you’ll often see name brand products competing with store brand “bargain” products. Today while shopping at CVS, I saw Brach’s Candy Corn sitting on the shelf next to the “premium quality” bargain brand CVS Candy Corn.

Usually, the draw of these CVS brand products is the budget price that accompanies them. When I picked up both off of the shelf to learn the differences between the two products, I was surprised by what I saw. I realized that the Brach’s and CVS brand Candy Corn were the same price. Not only were the costs identical, but the CVS Candy Corn was packaged in a 6 oz. bag, while the name brand was packaged in a 9 oz. bag. The roles were reversed – CVS was charging over a nickel more per ounce for their knockoff.

A good intern, Marc brought the candy corn back to the office and we sampled it both brands. They were definitely different, which really surprised me. They both had that great candy corn flavor, but had slightly different consistencies and very different overtones.

I liked them both but I can easily see someone preferring one brand over the other. For those who like the store brand – the one that you might expect to be a more cost effective choice – you have to wonder if it’s really 50% better. Can flavor enjoyment be quantified that way? The price being low all around, the cost difference per volume does not really matter for most people, but it makes me think of value and flavor enjoyment. Something like wine, for example – do you enjoy a $45 bottle of wine 50% more than you enjoy a $30 bottle of wine? I will have to consult Reggie, who is our resident wine lover.

Have you found your favorite candy corn brand yet?

Candy Corn Flower by FCivelloPhotography.

Many thanks to Tomi, who pointed me to this recipe. I made a vow to Susan not to bring up this topic but since one of our loyal readers has brought it up, I feel free to address it. The issue is what part of the candy corn is the top. This caused a big row last year on the blog. She says the white part, which is completely wrong, and I say the yellow part. My reasoning is that on the cob, the broad yellow part is on the outside, so that must be the top of the candy corn kernel.

She actually yelled at me, “Candy corn does not grow on a cob!” I maintain that to be the truth, and Candy Scientist Laura even explained how it is made, but for as long as we call it candy corn and not candy triangles, the corn metaphor stands. I didn’t make it up. Don’t yell at me, Susan. As the old song goes, the candy corn grows as high as an elephant’s eye.

We cobists are happy to see this recipe because it gives us an idea of what the fabled candy corn cob would look like if it did exist. Here is the recipe, from the Food Network:

Trim the ends of a store-bought jelly-roll cake to make a corn-cob shape. Cover with a thin layer of vanilla frosting, then cover the cake completely with candy corn, inserting the tips into the cake so that only the yellow ends are visible. Roll out a package of green fondant (we used Wilton Primary Colors Multi Pack, available at baking and crafts stores) until about 1/8 inch thick. Cut out 2 leaf-shaped pieces and arrange around the cake to look like husks.

Thank goodness Rob and I are in good company on this issue. If the Food Network people are on my side, I can’t be wrong. After all, they probably know the people who drive the combines on the fondant farm. I bet their Thanksgiving tastes a whole lot like Halloween.

Many thanks to About.com writer Elizabeth LaBau for writing up this recipe, which incorporates the best of both worlds – chocolate and candy corn. It reminds me a bit of the Bob’s Country Bunker scene in “The Blues Brothers” when the guys asked what kind of music the bar liked to play. “We have both types – country and western.” I am definitely making this if I get invited to a Halloween party.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup candy corn

Preparation:

1. Prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with aluminum foil.
2. In separate bowls, melt the chocolates in the microwave or over a double boiler.
3. Stir ½ cup candy corn into the dark chocolate, and pour the chocolate onto the foiled pan. Using a spoon or spatula, smooth the chocolate out in an even layer. It does not have to cover the whole pan.
4. Take a spoon and scoop small amounts of white chocolate over the dark chocolate in a random pattern. Use a toothpick or the tip of a knife to swirl the two chocolates together. Don’t swirl too much, you want to be able to see the distinct chocolates in the end.
5. Place the remaining ½ cup candy corn over the wet chocolates, sprinkling randomly and pressing them gently into the chocolate until they adhere.
6. Put the chocolate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to harden.
7. When the bark is firm, remove it from the foil and break it into pieces.

Candy Corn Love by HeySandra.

You may think from this week’s theme that we have a candy corn fixation. You are right. As Susan pointed out yesterday, it’s one of the few candies that is available for only a short time, and that preserves its magic and keeps the spark and love alive. However, we are not the only fans of the treat. Many thanks to Yum Sugar for posting a recipe that’s sure to delight Halloween partygoers everywhere. Well, adult partygoers, anyway. Candy corn cordials? Yes, sign me up!

Ingredients
For the infused vodka:
1/2 cup candy corn
1 1/2 cups vodka
For the cordials:
2 ounces orange liqueur
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 large egg white
Candy corn, for garnish

I don’t want to steal the thunder away from the original author, so you will have to go read the rest of the recipe on the original site. But anytime you have candy corn infused vodka, you can’t go wrong. This is the stuff of epic-sized parties.

Now that Candy Scientist Laura has shared with us the secrets of candy corn, you’re probably dying to try your hand at making your own, huh? 

Yeah, me neither.  Nonetheless, when loyal Twitter friend Fedward sent me this link to someone who had tried I was intrigued.  First of all, blogger Jessie Oleson, the CakeSpy, had me with the cleverly Photoshopped picture of her candy corn compared to the store bought variety.  The expressions on the ‘faces’ of the candy corns are priceless.

But the part that made me really take notice was her final declaration:

Conclusion? These homespun tricolor treats are definitely worth the time and effort. Once you’ve tasted them, you may never buy candy corn by the bag again.

Candy corn is one of those confectionery items that people either love or hate, with few people falling somewhere in between.  I happen to be in the camp of those who love it – but only for a few weeks of the year.  Part of what I like about candy corn is that it’s really only widely available from September – November and then you have to put it out of your head until the following fall.  To me, the idea that you can whip up your own any time you want takes away some of the magic.

Also, loyal readers will remember that I am pretty lazy when it comes to baking and Jessie’s recipe takes, as she mentions, a lot of time and effort.  I have a terrible feeling that were I to try to my hand at this, my candy corn would look malformed, not cute and tasty like Jessie’s.

All in all, I still don’t think homemade candy corn is for me … but I love that someone has figured out how to do it at home and I encourage those of you of a mind to try to give it a whirl.  Be sure to pick up a bag at the store for a proper taste comparison, though.

If you try Jessie’s recipe, please let us know.  And please send funny pictures of your candy corn personalities like Jessie’s adorable candy corn cuties above.   

Image courtesy of Jessie Oleson, the Cakespy

In keeping with the theme of this week, here we have a photo of candy corn. Yep. One of my newest favorite photographers in Frances Civello, a fellow photographer based in Hershey, PA. As you might guess, she take lots of photos of candy and chocolate, since she lives in the town where sweetness was invented. We have featured her work before and everyone here loves her sense of composition.

Speaking of composition, Frances does a great job in this photo centering the subject. Note that this photo does not follow the rule of thirds, to which I have made previous reference. However, the perfect centering makes it an appealing and interesting photo to behold. The lines are all regular and offer a defined structure, wherein the individual kernels of candy corn, plucked fresh from the candy cob, arranged in a natural, yet somewhat chaotic manner, reside.

Do you want your candy photos featured here? Submit them to the Candy Dish Blog Flickr group. We want to see your candy photos and so does the rest of the world!