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?