Halloween is a lot of fun. It’s fun for kids, of course, but it can be a lot of fun for parents, too. It’s great to watch your kids drag home their big Halloween candy haul and eat themselves into a dreamlike candy haze. But the next morning, there may be a little too much leftover Halloween candy for your kids to eat — although they may disagree.
It’s been about a month since Trick or Treat and do you find yourself having endless amounts of candy around the house? Even if your kids manage to get through all of their loot, there’s likely the matter of the candy you bought for visiting trick-or-treaters that got left over. Before you dump out all those goodies, or force feed them to yourself just to get them out of your sight, here are some great uses for leftover Halloween candy:
A great thing you can do with leftover Halloween candy is to donate it to a worthy cause, or better yet, help your kids donate it. Organizations that are more than happy to accept a leftover Halloween candy donation include Operation Gratitude, which sends over 100,000 care packages to U.S. Troops and their kids. You might also try the Ronald McDonald House, where most locations will accept unopened candy donations for the families they help at just about any time.
Maybe you’ve overdosed on pure candy, but that doesn’t mean that candy can’t experience new life in other food products. Leftover Halloween candy recipes are a great way to keep enjoying those tasty delights.
You can bake hard-panned candies into brownies, bake chocolate into cookies and even mix candy corn with pretzels and popcorn for a Halloween-themed snack mix. You can really liven up a cheesecake or some other type of pie with the right leftover Halloween candy as well.
This isn’t one for the kids, but certain red wines go great with a variety of chocolate candy. Certain other candy might pair well with spirits, too. Feel free to experiment!
Here’s a great use of leftover Halloween candy for you coffee drinkers. Drop some chocolate candies into your coffee and voila! Instant mocha.
Two days after Halloween, you and your kids might not want to look at Halloween candy for a while, but a couple of weeks later, it might be a different story. Not all treats will keep, but certain wrapped candies certainly will.
Put them on a high shelf and dole them out as special treats or rewards for good behavior. You can also keep some for yourself for when you need a little pick me up.
Candy is most closely associated with Halloween, but there are lots of holidays for which candy is appropriate. You can keep bowls of candy corn out for a little Thanksgiving appetizer or to accompany your pumpkin pie, decorate a gingerbread house with candy for Christmas or even maybe have a few extra wrapped candies to go into the Easter basket.
Halloween candy isn’t just for Halloween. Savor what you’d like now, and save the rest for a little while down the road. It can come in handy!