The best part of Halloween is the thrill of trick-or-treating until your basket is so stuffed to the brim that you can barely carry it to the next house. That is until you get home, eat 15 pieces in a row, and start to question whether you can ever eat sugar again. To me, eating Halloween candy after October 31st gets boring quickly, but I still want to make use of my epic haul. Here are some recipes to turn your leftovers into elevated candy treats!
Prep Shopping for Your Candy Treats
To start off my baking episode, I had to properly prepare the base ingredients. I stopped by one of the top-rated locations to trick or treat in Gainesville, Publix, and they supplied me with everything I needed! The highlights of my shopping haul were chocolate fudge brownie mix and chocolate chip cookie mix. I also grabbed a mix of various chocolates ranging from M&Ms to Reese’s and, of course, chocolate-covered pretzels. Since I didn’t go trick-or-treating this year, I had to buy these things, but as long as you’re nice to your neighbors, you should be able to acquire a lot of these ingredients for free.
Let’s dive into the dishes and see what these traditional candies turned into.
Gooey Chocolate M&M Brownies
The first thing I made was the brownies. If there’s anything better than a classic gooey chocolate brownie, it’s a gooey chocolate M&M’s brownie. Take the Betty Crocker recipe, add your eggs, oil, and provided mix, and whisk away all the unwanted chunks. Then, once the batter is ready, stir in your desired amount of M&M’s. Because I got the variety pack, I put in as much as possible to get an equal amount of peanut, peanut butter, and standard milk chocolate M&M’s.
Once the candy is mixed in (and you’ve snacked on some while prepping) pop the brownies in the oven until cooked but still gooey. When ready, take them out of the oven, add a few more M&M’s on top, and enjoy! Trust me this sweet, salty, and crunchy version of a brownie is worth the try.
Chocolate Candy Cookies
Now for the cookies. For an elevated version of a chocolate chip cookie, I threw in all the goodies. Prepare the cookies as directed by the mix, but hold off on adding in the candy. Once out of the oven, let the cookies rest, and begin adding the candy on top, alternating the candy type per cookie. When most of the cookies have been covered, begin mixing up the toppings. The more variation of candy on one cookie, the better. The final products should look like a rainbow display of M&M’s cookies, chocolate-covered pretzel cookies, and Reese’s cookies. A few lucky ones might even have all three candies!
While I only showed two recipes, this is just a glimpse at candy treats you can create to elevate your basket full of Halloween candy!