Creative Ways to Use Leftover Halloween Candy

It's 5 days after Halloween and I'm horrified that there are still two huge piles of trick or treat candy sitting on my counter top. My children (and husband) keep believing that they will just continue eating it all, but for the sake of their teeth and my hips and waist line I can't have all those sweets just sitting out like that.  Yes, I know I can pack them away in the cupboard or put it in the freezer but I also don't want to waste any of it either.  So being the creative mommy that I try to be, I am looking for ways to stretch out the calorie consumption of all that sugar by find ways to use the sweeties over a longer period of time.

I've thought of to use some of our leftover Halloween candy that might not be so horrifying for me and yet fun for my family.

1)  Make Snickers Salad - It uses up some of those mini Snickers bars and I've even used carmel Twix, Milky Way, Kit Kat bars.  Essentially I think you use anything with peanuts, caramel and/or chocolate and it will taste great.  If you use sugar free pudding and light Cool Whip or whipped cream you should have a fairly low sugar fruit based salad or dessert. (Made this today for a Bonfire Night BBQ!!!)

2)  Make trail mix with mini packages of M&Ms.  Mix together peanuts, raisins, M&M's, mini pretzels, Chex cereal and more to make a bit of a healthier snack but the M&M's add the sweet fun.

3)  Make a bowl of microwave popcorn for a family movie night and add in the mini bags of Skittles in it for a extra sweet taste with the salty popcorn.  Then share the whole bowl with the family and spread out the Skittles.

4)  Save the mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for a fun Thanksgiving crafty treat.  Make these Pilgrim Hat Cookies with the kiddos to get ready for the big meal.  You will have to pick up a package of fudge striped cookies but they loads of fun and you can share them with the whole family when they get together in a few weeks.

5)  For a special dessert one night, make Candy Bar Milkshakes.  Crush up any candy bars you've got left over and add them in with some frozen yogurt or sugar free ice cream and a splash of milk.

6)  I think I may save some of the small candies like M&M's, Smarties, gumdrops, Sweet Tarts, crushed up Dum-Dum suckers, etc. to use for decoraing Christmas sugar cookie or gingerbread houses.

7)  Tootsie Rolls are great but when they get hard you just can't eat them, so I found on Tootsie Roll's official website they have recipes for Tootsie Roll Cheesecake and Tootsie Roll Ice Cream Sauce which could be pretty good.  Also I found a recipe for Tootsie Roll fudge on the Taste of Home website and I'm thinking this might be a great new recipe I try for Christmas time.

8) For the rest of the candy that I can't cook with, I'd like to mix it in with some other little treats to create an advent calender for the kids to prepare for Christmas time.

I think the greatest thing about Halloween candies verse any other holiday's candies is that Thanksgiving and Christmas follow shortly after.  Not because it's the start of almost three months of sugar, but that there are probably thousands of ideas out there on how you can use all the chocolates, hard candies, and other sugary confections to make other tasty holiday treats and crafts.  If you have other ideas on how to stretch out the use of your Halloween candies I would love to hear from you.  Leave a comment below.  Thanks!

Tip for next year: When you select your Halloween candy to give away, make sure you pick things that if you do have leftovers you can have a plan on how to use for something else.

Pumpkin Roll

Pumpkin is truly an amazing food to incorporate into sweet and savory dishes but I love the sweet ones for sure.  I have had this recipe in my recipe box for a very long time and never tried until now. It's definitely going in my favorites list because I kept cutting thicker and thicker slices for myself.  I had never made a sponge cake like this and it was soooo easy and actually really fun to make.   It's a little different consistency from a pumpkin bar but the inside cream cheese spread makes it sure feel like the same thing. I just love how this little treat has a truly different little "twist" on a great pumpkin dessert.

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup canned pumpkin or pumpkin puree

1 tsp lemon juice

3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar/icing sugar

8 oz cream cheese

4 Tbsp butter, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla

Method:

Beat three eggs until frothy - about 5 minutes.

Next add sugar, pumpkin, and lemon juice.  Mix well.  Then add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt.  Mix well again.

Prepare a 12x17" jelly roll pan by spraying it with cooking oil spray, lined with waxed paper/parchment paper and then sprayed again with spray.

Pour batter into prepared jelly roll pan.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Turn out on cotton tea towel.

Remove waxed/parchment paper.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar (icing sugar).

Roll the cake and towel together and let cool.

Mix together icing spread.

When cooled, unroll cake and spread the icing evenly over the cake.

Roll the cake back up (without the towel) and wrap outside of the roll in waxed paper.

Then wrap again with foil before placing in the freezer for couple hours to chill very well.  Freezing the roll I feel is truly optional as the cake tastes great at fridge temp or a bit frozen.

Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

One treat that is synonymous with Halloween are popcorn balls, but they are fun anytime of the year. My mother-in-law made these for my hubby all the time when he was a kid and since she was around with us at Halloween this year I had her teach me how to make them. You can air pop your popcorn in a machine or if you are without one you can pop it over the stove "old-school" style. I use about 1/2 cup raw popcorn with 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pan to pop the corn. This will yield about 12 cups (3 quarts) of popped popcorn and perfect for this recipe.

Ingredients:

6 Tbsp butter

3 cups marshmallows

3 quarts (12 cups) popped popcorn

3 Tbsp dry jello mix

Method:

"Clean" your popcorn by fluffing it up in your hands to let the seeds drop out and transfer it to a large bowl or container.

Melt butter in large pan over medium heat. Add in marshmallows and stir until melted.

When marshmallows are melted, add in jello powder. (if the color you want is not accomplished with the jello you can add some food coloring to the mix)

Pour marshmallow mixture over the popcorn.

Churn around the popcorn until coated.

With greased fingers, grab the amount of mixture you want and form into balls. (My hand full would be about a 3/4 cup worth of popcorn). Set on non-stick baking paper. Store in large airtight container with baking paper separating the layers or you could wrap them individually with plastic wrap or place them in cellophane bags with a pretty ribbon.

Lollipop Ghosts

I wanted to make a fun little Halloween favor to go in some goodie bags for my daughter's preschool class. These little lollipop ghosts were so easy to put together and you probably don't even have to go out an buy anything extra other than the suckers to make these up.

Supplies:

10 Tootsie pops or other large round suckers

10 pieces of white facial tissues (Kleenex) or tissue paper cut in 8x8" squares

8 pieces of white yarn 10" long

Sharpie marker

Method:

Place lollipop head in the middle of the tissue.

Wrap the tissue around the head and hold it with one hand under the head.

Tie the yarn at the base of the head of the sucker and tie a bow.

Dot some eyes and a scary mouth on the head of the "ghost."

Use them as party favors or you could arrange them on a wreath for a fun and edible holiday decoration.