Halloween Candy and Other Treats: The Favorites, the Best, the Worst, the Seasonal, the Weird

[tomdarch]

Ditto on the Smarties! (and not those UK "smarties" totally different...)

[TAPrice]

I think I have bought out the stock of candy corn at my local pharmacy this year...Mmmm When it snice and fresh I can actually smell it walking through a store, kind of like driving in the spring and smelling Honeysuckle

I agree. Fresh candy corn is excellent.

[pringle007]

I dont enjoy standard candy corn, but I like the peppermint, creme de menthe, chocolate/cramel, and strawberry varieties of the candy.

[Chris Amirault]

KitKat makes a Halloween mini-bar out of "white" "chocolate" that is neither chocolate nor white: it's the color of your vomit after you've eaten too much orange sherbet. Tastes a bit that way, too. Scary stuff.

[toolprincess]

I love Reese's pumpkins (and eggs at easter and christmas trees and hearts) - they now make them at almost every holiday so a version of them is almost always in season. I do find they are more tasty than the regular reese cups.

I like the Mellowcreme pumpkins which are basically pumpkin shaped candy corn. edited to add: the texture is a bit different because they are thicker than candy corn.

Edited October 21, 2010 by toolprincess (log)

[Snadra]

Australians don't celebrate Halloween, and many people moan to me about the 'American Thing' that's insinuating itself into Aussie culture (as an expat Canadian, I take great offense at that - we do Halloween too!).

But I figure they just don't know the joy of a halloween molasses kiss.

Edit: punctuation round-up

Edited October 21, 2010 by Snadra (log)

[judiu]

Dark chocolate coated, individually packed Peeps Pumpkins. YUM!

[ruthcooks]

When I was a kid, you just put on some of your Mom's or Dad's old clothes and a generic mask, or cut eye-holes in a sheet. Treats were often homemade, such as popcorn balls, but apples were frowned upon.

My mother loved candy corn and, like some of you, swore that it tasted so much better when fresh at Halloween. I used to send her several pounds each year, until she died two years ago at age 90. Now I think about her whenever I see CC in the stores and it makes me sad.

My choices for trick or treat this year are Tootsie Pops and M&Ms--not very seasonal, just oldies but goodies. Plus individual gifts of Oreos and Cheetos, which are my littlest grandchildren's favorites.

[rooftop1000]

Now I "have" to go buy another bag of candy corn and eat it in honor of Ruth's mother...that will make 3 this week

tracey

[Toliver]

I'd seen the store aisles filled with early Halloween candy and started hankering for Payday candy bars of all things. I finally found some and I am now in salty peanut heaven.

It's interesting to compare Baby Ruth bars to Paydays. They're similar in make-up...a nougat-y log center covered with peanuts. But I think Baby Ruth's must have some sort of caramel, too, as they seem far sweeter than the Paydays.

Since I tend to favor the savory, I prefer the Paydays over the Baby Ruths.

What candy are you jonesing for as Halloween skulks onto the calendar?

[Beebs]

Coffee Crisp. Mmmmmmm......

Actually, I'll eat those year-round, but just prefer the snack-size ones so I can eat more of them.

[Shelby]

I never have trick-or-treaters because I live so far out--and believe me, it doesn't bother me a bit because I get ALL the candy

Sitting in a huge bowl beside me:

Skittles

York Peppermint Patties

Whoppers

Starbursts

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups--the normal size, not the little kind. I don't like the small ones due to how hard the chocolate is

Kit Kats

[Jaymes]

Funny about candy corn. It's what I always buy to give out to the little ones.

And that's because I can't stand it. Everything else I buy, I wind up eating myself before Halloween.

And then just have to go buy more.

But candy corn does the trick.

[baroness]

Funny about candy corn. It's what I always buy to give out to the little ones.

And that's because I can't stand it. Everything else I buy, I wind up eating myself before Halloween.

And then just have to go buy more.

But candy corn does the trick.

I find candy corn too sweet and one-dimensional.

But, mixed with lots of salty roasted peanuts, candy corn is dangerous!

[Jaymes]

Funny about candy corn. It's what I always buy to give out to the little ones.

And that's because I can't stand it. Everything else I buy, I wind up eating myself before Halloween.

And then just have to go buy more.

But candy corn does the trick.

I find candy corn too sweet and one-dimensional.

But, mixed with lots of salty roasted peanuts, candy corn is dangerous!

Oh great. Figure out a way to make the one thing I don't like into yet another thing I can't resist.

Anyone else have the problem of eating up all the Halloween candy before Halloween?

Or am I the only one with the willpower of your average two-year-old.

[lindag]

Although we're past that age I wonder what we like least of the candies we had or now give out.

My particular least favorites are Tootsie Rolls and candy corn.

What are your picks?

Also, maybe your favorites?

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by lindag
clarity (log)

[gfweb]

Candy corn. Horrid stuff. 

[Alex]

Ditto the candy corn, by far. Yes -- horrid, vile, no redeeming features, etc., etc.  Tootsie Rolls, meh, but I still like Tootsie Roll Pops. Little kids like them, too, because we'd hold out a bunch and give each one their choice of flavor. We're giving out half-sized Kit Kats this year, though.

[ChocoMom]

NECCO wafers.....  Hate those things. They taste like bad Tums.      All the other candy, I'm pretty cool with. And I don't hand it out. I turn the lights out, and eat it all.

[cakewalk]

Ditto candy corn. Gross. I can't think of anything else that even comes close. 

My favorites (of the non-chocolate candies) are Twizzlers. Just thinking about Twizzlers makes me smile. 

When I was a kid, my favorite chocolates were Chunkies, hands down. We hardly ever saw them in our Halloween bags, but sometimes we got lucky.

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Halloween has come to Mexico, although we call it Dia de los Muertos. Several days before Muertos kids are circulating with their "calabacitas," which are either plastic pumpkins or actual hollowed out squash. Candy is appreciated but what they really want is a couple of pesos. In fact many of the squash have holes too small to push in real candy, so clearly they prefer pesos. I circulate around town with candy and pesos in my pocket just in case. Kids don't go door to door here, though that may change when kids come back from the US and the custom changes.

 

As to favorite candy--I have to confess that as a child I loved candy corn. As an adult, not so much, though if you showed up at my door right now I would snatch it out of your hand. Give me chocolate any time, though. I learned early on, when we lived in Boulder and kids would show up at the door, that most didn't really care. Tootsie Roll pops were always a good choice given that candy apples and other homemade treats were off limits. But that was in the early 1970s before Boulder became "Boulder" and possibly things have changed since then. When we moved to the country and our closest neighbors moved away we had no takers at the door.

 

I also learned that for the sake of our waistlines we should always choose candy that we didn't like, because the leftovers would be less attractive.

 

One of the things that we've appreciated is how the customs from one country--the US--gets morphed in another country. Children, who are the most adaptable of us, can convert one custom--Muertos--into some else--Halloween. And in both cases they get candy. What could be bad?

 

Nancy in Patzcuaro

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Sorry to have wandered off into the weeds--

 

The question was--worst Halloween candy. I've already admitted that as a child I craved candy corn, but of the other choices it would have to be anonymous hard candies or very old (dry) caramels. Tooth breakers, all of them.

 

OK--what do you all hand out at Halloween? I think we've established that candy corn is the winner in the "Worst Candy" division, with Tootsie Rolls a distant second. I admit to being ignorant of current candy choices, so what other horrible options are left that we haven't identified?

 

Nancy in Patzcuaro

.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Nancy in Pátzcuaro
to correct typo (log)

[Thanks for the Crepes]

2 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

NECCO wafers.....  Hate those things. They taste like bad Tums.      All the other candy, I'm pretty cool with. And I don't hand it out. I turn the lights out, and eat it all.

 

I agree with NECCO wafers coming in as the vilest candy. I never saw them at Halloween, but we would get them in our Christmas stockings in VT. Wow! even as a kid I couldn't eat them, except for the chocolate variety, and even that was horrible. I gave them away to siblings after unsuccessfully trying to barter for something else. They are hard to find now, and they do have their (deranged ) fans.

 

@cakewalk, I also like Twizzlers, they're not too sweet. My favorite iteration of that is strawberry whips, which might not be Twizzlers brand, but it's the same formula. They all have some starch and oil and cut down the sugar to a reasonable degree.

 

And yeah, I agree with other posters who used to like candy corn, and still think it's a pretty candy, but as an adult it tastes like waxed sugar to me. 

 

For what few trick or treaters we do get (only kids of neighbors I know personally and then they go to one of the organized events), I usually get a mixed bag of mini chocolate bars. They have a big thing up at the Cary Towne Center Mall near here, where all the stores give out candy, and since that started, most parents take their kids up there. There are other managed events for Halloween here in Cary as well. 

 

I miss the cute, adorable little costumed kids we used to get here, but we have grown a lot since then. I can still remember one adorable little girl dressed as an angel asking me what I was supposed to be dressed as. It was funny, because I hadn't dressed for Halloween at all, but instead was wearing a dress I wore often to work that was a cornflower blue with a small print of white flowers and multiple flounces of ruffles of the same material trimmed with white lace on the hem and around the short ruffled sleeves. I guess I looked like a fairy godmother to her? I think that's what she said, and it was a pretty dress that I liked very much.  I love this memory of the cute little angel.

 

With things like this, I can certainly understand why parents don't want to be roaming the streets with their kids, much less let the older ones go alone. This would never have happened in 1986 when I moved here from Tennessee. Halloween has changed, and not for the better here. And yeah, almost no one trick or treats at houses where they don't know each other pretty well, but I don't think the kids suffer with all the safe and organized events here. Cary is very family oriented.

[Tri2Cook]

I'm not sure I'd even consider it Halloween candy if it wasn't for the fact that it's actually shown up in my kid's candy bag on more than once occasion. I'm talking about what may not only be the worst Halloween candy, it may be the most non-intentionally unpleasant candy period... Circus Peanuts. Candy Corn isn't particular bad in taste, it just isn't particularly anything except sweet. I wouldn't buy it by the pound but I don't mind a small handful.

[BeatriceB]

Ugh, one more for the candy corn and Necco wafers! I also hated Dixie Sticks, which were paper tubes filled with (I think) pretty much just colored sugar with a little fake fruit flavor.

 

ETA: Googled and just realized that they are called Pixy Sticks, not Dixie. Ah, getting old.

Edited October 18, 2017 by BeatriceB (log)