This treat signals the beloved time of year again. Autumn. Just as soon as the first batch of the season is distributed, candy corn lovers hit the stores like there is no tomorrow. Two years ago Kim Dean, my former supervisor and Halloween costume buyer introduced my coworkers and I to Poor Man's Payday. One year she brought us our own individual treat cups filled with the mixture, another year she brought in a giant bowl which did not last more than the day. Regardless of how she delivered it to us, she still had to make several batches to leave at home for her family. This year I made my own individual treat bags using scrapbook paper and embellishments to hand out to my husband's coworkers at Terminal Reality. I filled the baggies with just enough for an afternoon snack and well... to tickle the seasonal craving for weeks to come. For those of you who dislike the Payday candy bar you must try this fresh replacement as I, myself did not dare eat that dry hard candy brick. The best ratio to pop into your mouth is 2 peanuts to 1 candy corn. But experiment for yourself and find out how many peanuts to candy corn will balance your taste buds...
Ingredients:
1 - 12.5 oz can of Spanish peanuts (redskin)
1 - 22 oz bag of candy corn
Tips:
-Do not substitute party peanuts (no skin) for the Spanish peanuts. During the process of roasting the peanuts without the skin take on too much of the roast smoky flavor for this recipe.
-Brach's candy corn is great. No matter what you use make sure that your candy corn is made with honey.
-You better double your recipe if you want it to last.
-Purchase the candy corn early in the season before it becomes difficult to find.
-Brach's candy corn is usually at Walgreen's and CVS even when you cannot find it in your local grocer.
-Make your own treat bags using clear 4x6 inch treat bags with ties found at craft stores like Michael's and Jo-Ann's. Fill the bag and tie or staple shut. Using a hot glue gun attach the bag to scrapbook paper or cardstock that you have cut down to the size of the bag.
Update 10/16/2013:
Just thought I would share some of the new cardstock designs that I used for this year's treats. Last week, I cut 100 pieces of cardstock and assembled them for my husbands game studio co-workers at Edge of Reality. Yesterday, I finished them off by adding the labels.
And a great tip! Randall's and Tom Thumb is now carrying the large 40 ounce bag of Brach's candy corn this year. If using a bag of this size then you will also need to double up your peanuts to two 12.5 ounce cans. From the 40 ounce bag of candy corn and the 2 cans of peanuts my single batch ranged from 41 to 45 treat bags. I made 2.5 batches using this method this fall for treat bags and had the other half batch for our home.
Now here's the shocker! Monday while I was at Randall's I spotted a new version of the candy corn mix that Brach's produces. Get this...It was candy corn and regular cocktail peanuts. OMG! First of all, I can tell you this handmade version is older and secondly using cocktail peanuts is blasphemy because it changes the flavor entirely. If there is anyone out there who could tell me the date that Brach's first introduced their version I would be quite interested.
Happy Halloween!!
