Have your kids collected an abundance of Halloween candy, or received an astronomical amount of chocolate for Christmas or Easter? If they tend to lose interest in their treats after a while (or to avoid some of them right off the bat), why not cook with them instead? Here are a few recipes to help limit waste and save money on ingredients.
1. Chocolate fondue
Looking for a quick way to use up your mini chocolate bars: think fondue! Use chocolate that have no other ingredients, such as Aero, Mirage, Hershey’s mini bars, etc. Using a double boiler, melt your chocolate with a bit of milk or cream, as needed. A true delight, especially with bananas, strawberries, and pineapple!
2. Cake garnishes
Kids love cupcakes . . . especially when they’re topped with jujubes, licorice, Smarties, Nerds, LifeSavers, and other little candies! All you need is a little imagination, and you can turn your cakes into funny faces or give them a fancy trim. Keep your candy in an airtight container to preserve their freshness.
You can also use your candy for arts and crafts, like hand-made candy necklaces.
3. Caramel-flavoured desserts
Caramel squares are a Halloween staple! However, children often tend to toss them aside. Before they become hard as rock, melt them over low heat, adding cream: You can use this creamy mixture in your favourite pie, tiramisu, or pudding recipe. It also makes for a great topping for a cake or vanilla ice cream, or to make it the surprise ingredient in a molten lava cake.
You could easily replace the caramel portion of this pear upside down spice cake with caramel recipe with the caramel you just made with your kids’ leftover candy.
4. Desserts made with chocolate bars
Chocolate bars may be the first of your kids’ Halloween candy to go, but you might want to borrow a few to create a dessert the whole family will love. Think, for example, the Mars bar, whose culinary potential inspires even some of the world’s top chefs, or the Caramilk, which can easily be integrated into cakes, cream fudge, pies, brownies, and so on.
To try:
5. Chocolate desserts
Chocolate squares (think Bakers, sweet or semi-sweet) or chocolate candy melts can easily be replaced with chocolate bars. Word to the wise: watch out for quantity (in grams) not to spoil your recipe, and reduce the amount of sugar needed (because chocolate bars generally contain more sugar than the chocolate sold specifically for cooking). Some examples of sweet treats for you to try? A crumble, cheesecake, or mousse.
To try:
Keeping candy and chocolate
Do you still have candy around the house after several weeks? Forget about keeping them for next year, as most will be past their best by date by then.
Here is the average longevity of different candy types:
- Jellied candy, gum, and caramels: six to nine months.
- Milk chocolate bars: no more than 10 months.
- Chewable hard candy: one year at most.
- Dark chocolate (carefully wrapped and kept in a dark place): two years.