Homemade Halloween Candy

October 24, 2007 1:34 PM

Make your own Halloween candy bars. The take on a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup is superb. However, to temper chocolate properly, you'll need an accurate kitchen scale. The behind-the-scenes video is pretty cool.
posted by AceRock (26 comments total)

Nice post, like the video.

Here is a recipe for pumpkin bread for those of you who can cook.
posted by CameraObscura at 1:46 PM on October 24, 2007

And I was just wondering what to do with my evening.
Silly me.
Candy!
posted by bassjump at 1:47 PM on October 24, 2007

If you're going to spend that much for a kitchen scale, please spend a little more and get one that is not a gimmick. (Disclosure: I work for a scale company, but not the one linked.)
posted by localroger at 1:52 PM on October 24, 2007

Make your own candy corn!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:52 PM on October 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

To hell with kids, I'm making these for myself.
posted by cog_nate at 1:58 PM on October 24, 2007

I don't think you need a scale to temper chocolate. You might need a scale to measure a pound of couverture but you'd be better served with a thermometer for tempering.

Also, I have been told that the easier way to melt & temper choclate is to just melt it in the microwave and then stir in some unmelted choclate until it melts. It's a crystalization type of reaction, so the tempered solid chocolate serves to seed the crystalization correctly.

Having said all that, making your own peanut butte rcups is a great idea. Like, I'm-doing-it-this-weekend great.
posted by GuyZero at 1:58 PM on October 24, 2007

Awesome way to celebrate Halloween. And their bars all look way better than the store versions.

Of course, I couldn't read it without thinking about the beautiful NOKA expose from last year. A must read for anyone wanting to know more about chocolate making.
posted by mosessis at 1:59 PM on October 24, 2007

If you are going to make your own candy, why not make something like the stuff on this site . The kids will love you if you hand those out.
posted by recursion at 2:07 PM on October 24, 2007

They've been showing episodes of Good Eats on homemade candy recently.
posted by puke & cry at 2:11 PM on October 24, 2007

Don't you know homemade candy is only good for hiding razor blades? How dare you foist this on children?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:15 PM on October 24, 2007

"Hey kids. Try my candy. I made it myself."
posted by ColdChef at 2:21 PM on October 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

as if hiding razorblades weren't enough reason to make them!
posted by shmegegge at 2:21 PM on October 24, 2007

This is good!

I wish; 1) I had time to make candy for trick-or-treaters, and 2) homemade candy would be acceptable by parents in this age of "everyone is out to hurt children, and we must do everything we can to protect them, including being completely insane about every aspect of our children's existence".
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 2:21 PM on October 24, 2007

schmegegge, you reminded me... Around this time of year, I keep wanting to go to the grocery store and pick up a bag of apples, and a package of straight razor blades. Just to watch the cashier's reaction.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 2:23 PM on October 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

The only scale on the market which analyzes the nutritional content of food by portion size for both labeled and unlabelled foods.

?
posted by prostyle at 2:26 PM on October 24, 2007

XQUZYPHYR: You know how much trouble I have getting butter on the damn bread evenly?
posted by dismas at 2:52 PM on October 24, 2007

Don't you know homemade candy is only good for hiding razor blades?

I think this is a great idea. I've always had problems eating razor blades and this will make it much easier and more delicious.

And I am so making the peanut butta cups.
posted by quin at 3:01 PM on October 24, 2007

"1" is what you assign to grilled cheese sandwiches.
I remember when I was six, I loved grilled cheese sandwiches. I woke up one day and wanted one, but my parents were still asleep. Being a fairly analytical child, I knew I had some basic rules in front of me:

• don't wake the parents
• Can't touch the stove

I sat in my toybox for awhile, cradling my favorite plastic fire engine, and thought it out. I then crawled out of the toybox, went into the kitchen, carefully opened up the fridge, got out a slice of cheese and the bread. I buttered the bread, assembled my sandwich, and jammed the entire thing into the toaster. The sandwich stuck in the toaster, and started to smolder, setting off the fire alarm and waking up my dad. "What is that OH JESUS FIRE", I remember him saying, grabbing the toaster, ripping the plug out of the wall as he ran outside and threw the kindling appliance onto the sidewalk. I got a spanking with the belt for that one.
A grilled cheese may be a "1" on your scale, but it certainly wasn't on mine that day.
posted by boo_radley at 3:06 PM on October 24, 2007

NO! You are NOT allowed to the old Metafilter house. Their candies are not pre-wrapped!
posted by R. Mutt at 3:12 PM on October 24, 2007

While they aren't exactly candy, how about some Vampire Cupcakes?

Much to me and my roommate's disappointment, you need a food processor to make the filling (which we don't have). Hopefully we can think of an alternative before Halloween.
posted by kosher_jenny at 3:27 PM on October 24, 2007

kosher_jenny: do you have a stick blender, blender, or even a food mill? Hell, if you had the patience you could probably push the cherry pie filling through a sieve.
posted by heeeraldo at 3:51 PM on October 24, 2007

My grilled cheese sandwich recipe involves baking bread. But they come out awesome.
posted by aubilenon at 4:43 PM on October 24, 2007

Bread, cheese, butter, cast iron pan. Mix to taste.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:11 PM on October 24, 2007

heeeraldo, we're all college students, so: none of the above. ;) The sieve idea sounds good though.
posted by kosher_jenny at 10:22 PM on October 24, 2007

Also, aublilenon's grilled cheese sandwich looks freakin' delicious.
posted by kosher_jenny at 10:23 PM on October 24, 2007

Thanks kosher_jenny.

My peanut butter cups are in the freezer right now OH HOLY CRAP THEY'RE READY

*HOMPFTH CHOMPF*

Favoriting this FPP now!

(I used those corrugated paper cupcake pants, that I found in mini size, since I didn't have a mini-muffin pan. Worked great. Also dark chocolate. I have no idea if the tempering worked right.)
posted by aubilenon at 12:04 AM on October 25, 2007