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Friday, November 2, 2012

What to do with leftover Hallowe'en candy

Did you buy more trick-or-treat candy than you really needed? I know I did. I bought 4 bags of candy and only had about 20 trick-or-treaters. So what to do with all the leftovers?

First of all, you can donate wrapped candy:

-To the troops (USA)

From operationshoebox.com -- if you don't know what to do with all that left over Halloween candy, send it to us and we will get it over to our troop! Every year we go through tons of candy that we send to our troops and would be happy to have your left overs! Our mailing address is:

Operation Shoebox
8360 E Highway 25
Belleview, FL 34420


Many dentist offices in the US will also accept the candy. They will send it to the troops for you.

Other places to donate wrapped candy:

-Check with your local Meals on Wheels chapter. They will gladly accept wrapped candy.
-Check with your local Ronald McDonald House. Many have welcomed wrapped candy in past years.
-Check with your local women's shelter, Salvation Army meal outreach (aka  soup kitchen), food bank, homeless shelters/inner-city missions. The folk who use these services are often forgotten during the holidays. A bag of candy could bring a lot of smiles to faces.

Use in a pinata
If your child will be having a birthday soon, save it to fill a pinata for the party.

Use it in baking/cooking

  • this one's really yum! caramel/chocolate/nutty/coconut pieces can be added to any brownie recipe
  • chocolate bars can be used in making indoors s'mores
  • these are very pretty -- use hard candies in stained glass Christmas cookies
  • use M & M s (or other meltable pieces) in cookie dough, or to decorate a batch of cupcakes, or to make an open "face" peanut butter sandwich (spread 1 slice of bread with peanut butter and make a face out of candy pieces).
  • this sounds strange, but it's really very good -- add candy corn to a batch of chocolate fudge. It adds a buttery and chewy sensation to the fudge.
  • add candies to pudding. Chop bars up into bits and sprinkle over pudding. Stir gummy candies into pudding (any wormy looking candies are great for making "mud")
Save for Christmas to add to stockings. You may have to hide the candy, if you want it to last until then! 

Save for Christmas to use to decorate a mini "gingerbread house" (the kind where you take a small milk carton and use frosting to "glue" graham crackers on to it, then decorate with candies).


What do you do with extra trick-or-treat candy?

8 comments:

  1. I try to have only a little extra candy, so we enjoy the treat of eating it after the Trick-or-Treaters are done.

    Good ideas about where to send it. One year, we sent a box of candy to our cousin serving in Iran and it was a big hit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I usually don't have so much candy leftover, but this year was different. We had rain here, and that seemed to keep the trick-or-treaters indoors. I've never had 2 bags left over before!

      Delete
  2. Leftover candy corn is really good mixed with dry roasted peanuts. It's kind of addicting if you like sweet/salty snacks.

    Leftover Hershey bars can be used to make fudge using the Hershey's Million Dollar Fudge recipe. This was my Mom's favorite fudge recipe from her childhood and we still love to make it every year. The recipe calls for the giant Hershey bars...but I've used the leftover miniatures before. All you have to know is how many ounces of chocolate the giant bars are and how many ounces are in the small or miniature bars and do the math. I've done this many times and it still turns out fine.

    You mentioned adding candy to brownies... You can mix up a batch of brownies...boxed mix or from scratch. Line a muffin pan with muffin/cupcake liners and pour some brownie batter in each cup. Add a miniature Reese cup to each and bake. My manager's wife makes these for us every year around the Holidays and everyone loves them.

    Also, you can make the peanut butter blossom cookie recipe and press a Hershey's kiss into each cookie before baking.

    Oh, my...now I'm craving chocolate and baked goodies. :)

    Angie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Angie,
      Great ideas on ways to use up the candy! I've never made the Hershey's Million Dollar Fudge before. I'll have to search that recipe. It sounds delicious!

      Delete
  3. I have a TON of leftover candy this year, and I'd better come up with something quick lest it all end up on my rear end! I suppose I could just glue it to my hips and thighs and save myself some trouble... We had less than half the trick-or-treaters that we usually get - probably because of a recent high profile abduction/murder in the area.

    One year I did the operation shoebox thing, but it sort of felt silly as the postage cost more than the candy did. Last year I took it to a local dentist's office, and they managed to get me into the chair (long overdue) and the whole adventure cost nearly $5K. Ug. That's probably what I should do again, but I'm really not terribly eager to repeat that whole experience.

    I'm going to a party tomorrow, so I think I'll use a bunch of the Hershey's kisses and make peanut butter kiss cookies to bring to the party. The rest must leave the premises very, very SOON, so I think I'll try some of your suggestions!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Cat,
      As soon as you mentioned the recent high profile case I knew exactly who you were talking about. that was in all the news even here. I can imagine that made parents and kids a bit wary about sending kids out. I'm guessing a lot of parents organized parties or took their kids to the mall for Hallowe'en.

      For our area, I think it was the weather. It' been non-stop rain for about a week. We've got 2 unopened bags of candy left. I'm going to hang on to one of them for Christmas stockings, and donate the other one to the food bank.

      Good luck getting rid of yours. Baking the peanut butter and kiss cookies sounds like a good start!

      Delete
  4. Great ideas, Lili. :) So nice of you to donate them to our troops. We used to do that when we sold Girl Scout cookies. They sure do appreciate them. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Belinda,
      Thanks you. My sister-in-law used to offer to take Girls Scout cookies that I bought from her daughter, to the food bank for me (they live in another state). It was a way for me to help my niece's GS troop, without us eating the cookies (or having to pay to have them shipped here). But I bet the troops overseas really appreciated receiving cookies.

      Delete

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