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Recipes

Turn Leftover Halloween Candy Into Cookies and Shakes With These Recipes

This article is written by a student writer from the Spoon University at UIUC chapter.

It’s the end of October and that means the first thing you’ll see when you walk in the grocery store are rows and rows of marked down bags of Halloween candy. Trick-or-treating makes Halloween the best day of the year for any kid, by far. Free candy and an epic costume, what could possibly beat that?

Of course, college kids enjoy celebrating Halloween too. Despite being “too old” to trick-or-treat, we still manage to have fun throughout the entire Halloween weekend. 

Halloween Candy sweetmeat bonbons
Angela Kerndl

And in case you were wondering what your favorite dessert tastes like paired with your favorite Halloween candy, you’ve come to the right place. You don’t have to throw away your leftover Halloween candy anymore—you can actually make it better. The following is a list of the best recipes that incorporate your leftover Halloween candy.  

Snickers Milkshake

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 3 minutesCook time: minutesTotal time: 3 minutesServings:2 servings

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Photo By Angela Kerndl

    Place Snickers, ice cream, and milk into a blender. Blend for approximately 30 seconds.

  2. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Divide into 2-3 separate glasses. Top with whipped cream if desired.

They weren’t lying, Snickers really do satisfy. Which means a milkshake made from the best candy bar is most definitely a win.  

ROLOs are a beautiful thing in and of themselves—a chocolate and caramel goodness. To make them even more amazing, put them inside a peanut butter cookie and you’re set to go (it’s no wonder Reese’s ranks number one on the list of favorite Halloween candies). It doesn’t get much better than that.   

ROLO-Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 20 minutesCook time: 10 minutesTotal time: 30 minutesServings:20 servings

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    In a large bowl, mix together the butter and the sugars.

  2. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Stir in the egg and the vanilla extract, then add the peanut butter. Mix the baking soda and flour in last.

  3. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Once the dough is evenly mixed together, place it in the fridge for at least 10 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  4. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Place a tablespoon of dough onto a cookie sheet. The dough should be in a ball shape. Place a ROLO in the center on top of the ball. Top the ROLO with more dough (approximately 1/4 tablespoon, or enough to cover the ROLO). Repeat as many times as space on your cookie sheet allows.

  5. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Place cookie sheet into the oven for 10 minutes. Once done, let cool for a few minutes. Then remove cookies from the cookie sheet and serve.

In this next recipe, make sure the candy corn is not touching the cookie sheet when you place the dough down because it will stick to the sheet, which is super hard to get off. I made that mistake, whoops. 

Candy Corn and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 30 minutesCook time: 10 minutesTotal time: 40 minutesServings:20 servings

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    In a large bowl, mix together thoroughly the butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla extract.

  2. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Then stir in the milk, flour, baking soda, and salt to the same bowl. Add the candy corn and white chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough for about 20 minutes.

  3. Photo by Angela Kerndl

    Preheat oven to 350°F. Ball the dough into approximately one tablespoon and place on a cookie sheet. Place in the oven for 10 minutes and then let cool.

Even though we may be too old to still trick-or-treat, we’ll never stop loving Halloween. Make one of these recipes to bring back memories of the good old days trick-or-treating. Plus, you won’t have to throw out perfectly good candy.  

And if you’re still trying to figure out what to wear this year, I suggest going as food, of course, so check this out for a few ideas.  

Angela is a broadcast journalism student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She recently spent six months eating her way through Mexico. She looks forward to spending another six months studying abroad, this time in Hong Kong. She is currently training for her first ever marathon and hopes to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She loves spending time cooking while listening to NPR. You can follow her on instagram @angelakerndl and @hangry.angela!...also, her spirit animal is Haruki Murakami.