Candy Corn Muffins Recipe

I find corn muffins to be an exceedingly lovable food, especially when they contain fat kernels of corn. But since October is prime time for candy, I wondered—what might happen if I swapped real corn for candy corn?

Well, since I have now done it, I can tell you that depending on how you want to look at it, the result is either awful or awesome. Points for awful: the candy corn melts and forms a sticky, sugary well at the bottom of the muffin cup, making it sort of the muffin equivalent of a mullet: business on the top, party on the bottom. Points for awesome: well, actually, now that I think of it, pretty much the same. The candy corn definitely brings these muffins into dessert or sweet snack territory. So for those moments when the slightly gritty texture and light sweetness of a corn muffin strike you as entirely too healthy and simply won't satisfy your sweet tooth, go for the candy gold with these muffins.

Candy Corn Muffins

Makes 12

• 1 cup (about 4 1/4 ounces) flour
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cup (about 10 ounces) milk
• 1/3 cup (5 tablespoons) butter, melted
• 1 cup candy corn

Procedure

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat the oven to 400°F. Either line a muffin tin with paper liners, or generously grease each cup.  
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.  
3. In another large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and butter. Stir well.  
4. Using a wooden spoon, stir the wet mixture into the dry, taking care to only mix until the entire mixture is incorporated. Overmixing leads to leaden, hockey puck-like muffins.  
5. Gently fold in the candy corn, making sure it is evenly distributed. 6 Fill each of the cups about 3/4 of the way full. You should be able to fill 12 cups.  
6. Place the filled muffin tin on top of a cookie sheet (the candy corn may bubble and drip over the sides; this will keep your oven clean). Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden on top. Take care when removing the muffins, as the candy corn may have bubbled over and this sweet mixture is quite hot.  
7. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.

13 Ways to Mess with Candy Corn

Creamed Candy Corn!First things first. Last week I offered to give away a copy of my masterpiece entitled CakeSpy Presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life. To enter to win, I asked people which they preferred: Candy corn or Mellowcreme Pumpkins.

Well, the winner, Becky S. from Plainfield, IL chose candy corn, and says that crazy as it sounds she eats each piece color by color.

Congratulations Becky!

And this got me thinking how over the years I have messed with candy corn in quite a few ways. Here's a roundup to give you some ideas for how to get downright mischievous with maize--of the sugary sort. Enjoy!

Candy Corn Nanaimo Bars.

Put it all in a pie crust with other Halloween candy and make Leftover Halloween Candy Pie.

Enjoy candy corn in the morning with Candy Corn Muffins.

Make popcorn balls.

Deep-fry it.

Make some tricked-out Krispie Treats!

Celebrate it by making Candy Corn shaped cookies!

Creamed Candy Corn (pictured top)

Make tricolor cookies.

Candy Corn Upside-Down Cake.

Make this delicious Candy Corn Boston Cream Pie recipe.

Of course, you could always also make your OWN candy corn! The recipe is in my book.

Trick or Sweet: Candy Corn Upside Down Cake

Recently, I asked my favorite Pineapple Upside-Down Cake recipe a serious question: "What would you like to be for Halloween this year?".

After considering various options, such as Doughnut Upside-Down Cake, Tarte Tatin, and various other options for the inverted dessert, we decided to go with something festive: Candy Corn Upside-Down Cake.

It was simple enough to do: just substitute candy corn for the pineapple requested in the original recipe. But what happened when I baked it up was a surprise: the brown sugar and butter topping fused with the melted candy corn to form some sort of unholy, monstrous Halloween caramel-sugar topping, which dripped back into the cake when inverted. The result? The entire buttery cake tasted like it had been basted in candy corn. And if you're a candy corn lover, that might just be a beautiful thing.

Even Unicorn agrees!

Candy Corn Upside Down Cake

9 servings

• 1/3 cup (about 5 tablespoons) butter, plus 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened and divided
• 2/3 cup (about 6 ounces) packed light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups candy corn
• 1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (about 7 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk (whole or 2 percent)

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the butter in a 9-inch square baking pan, and set it in the oven until melted (it is fine to do this as the oven preheats). Remove the pan from the oven and gently tilt so that the butter coats the entire bottom of the pan. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the butter. Sprinkle candy corn evenly on top.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, mixing until incorporated. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, in 2 to 3 additions, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl with each addition. Beat on low speed until fully incorporated. Pour the batter into the pan, taking care not to dislodge the carefully planted candy corn.  
4. Set a cookie tray under the cake in the oven, in case the candy bubbles or drips. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, 45 to 50 minutes.  
5. Immediately place a heatproof serving plate upside down over the pan; in one swift, sure motion, flip the plate and pan over so that the cake is now on the plate. Leave the pan in place for several minutes so the gooey mixture can drip down over the cake. After the dripping is done, lift off the pan. Serve still slightly warm. Store, loosely covered, at room temperature.

Sweet Leftovers: 10 Things to do With Leftover Halloween Candy

It's the most wonderful time of the year: that magical day after Halloween where all of the candy is available for dramatically reduced prices, and it's still fairly plentiful in your Halloween bag--that is to say, it's even possible that you've got a surplus. So with that sweet excess in mind, here are some suggestions for what to do with your leftover Halloween candy:

Eat it (duh).

Deep-fry it.

Make candy corn into creamed candy corn.

Make popcorn balls.

Bake it into a cheesecake!

Put it in a blender with a scoop of ice cream and half a cup of cream: Halloween Leftover Milkshake!

Use it to stuff cupcakes.

Make Nanaimo Bars!

Melt it into hot chocolate.

Put it all in a pie crust and make Leftover Halloween Candy Pie.

 ...or, you could just forget it all and make some Pan de Muerto.

Creepy Cute: Zombie Graveyard Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

Zombies don't eat cake—they eat people's brains. But this Halloween, here's a way to turn the tables: Zombie Graveyard Cake.

This is just about the tastiest graveyard you'll ever come across. Starting with a generous amount of grass green-tinted frosting, the cake is then lined with cookie crumbles to resemble the residual grave-escape dirt, dotted with cookie "graves", and decorated with zombie cutout cake picks (printable illustrations to cut out can be found here) to form a delightful dessert that is creepy and cute all at once.

For the full entry, visit Serious Eats!

Boo-Meringues: Meringue Skulls Recipe for Serious Eats

What do you get when you combine spooky skulls and sweet meringues?

Boo-meringues, of course!

If you need a moment to groan at that joke, I completely understand. But what's no joke is that these ghoulish meringues are simple to make, but even more fun to serve: personalize your skulls with funny faces to add some sweet charm to your Halloween fete.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Pop and Corn: Candy Corn Popcorn Balls Recipe for Serious Eats

Legend has it that Candy Corn is named for its coloring, which is inspired by the gradient of a kernel of corn. Sweet as this story may be, I've got to squint really hard to see the resemblance.

Nonetheless, I'm happy to bring the iconic tricolor treat together with popped kernels of its namesake, in the form of Candy Corn Popcorn Balls. These sweet marshmallow-based popcorn balls work beautifully when studded with candy corn; adding an extra shake of salt makes for a sweet, salty, crunchy, crispy, sticky, and overall pretty irresistible fall treat.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Trick or Sweet: Mellowcreme Pumpkin Shaped Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

Candy corn may be popular, come Halloween. But I, for one, think that its cousin, the Mellowcreme Pumpkin, deserves far more love and attention. Its larger surface area makes for a chewier-textured candy, and its pumpkin shape is just so cute.

And so I'm putting these pumpkins on a pedestal—literally—in a full-sized cake form tribute to the Mellowcreme Pumpkin. The look may not be exact, but I hope you'll forgive me when you taste it: made using a pumpkin cake generously coated in tinted cream cheese frosting, this is a highly delicious homage to a second-banana Halloween sweet.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

A-Maize-Ing: Creamed Candy Corn for Serious Eats

Halloween's over, and chances are, you've got a bunch of leftover candy corn. But what to do with all those extra tricolor kernels?

Here's an idea: cream them. That is, creamed corn style.

Starting with a recipe for creamed corn, I simply revised it a little, substituting candy corn for real corn, and leaving out the pepper and spices in favor of a little pudding mix to thicken the mixture. The resulting candy corn slurry is certainly one of those dishes that straddles the line between awful and awesome: that is to say, you might just like it, but you probably wouldn't confess that to your foodie friends.

Note: It is of utmost importance that you add the candy corn after the other ingredients. Add it at the same time and you'll end up with an orange, candy corn-flavored soup because they'll melt completely!

For the full post and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Baker's Dozen: A Batch of Sweet Links

Boo! It's Halloween weekend, and therefore, I've put together a collection of mostly ghostly links for you to enjoy before you put on your costume and gorge yourself silly with candy:

Sweet skulls: Whimzkulls is a company dedicated to making cookies decorated like skulls!

DailyCandy offers up a very cute gift guide for baking enthusiasts.

The Best Chocolate Rugelach in Midtown (an exclusive from Blondie & Brownie)

Any establishment that offers a "Couture Cookies and Granola" menu is just fine by me!

Bakery lust: a London-based customer tipped me off to the beauty that is Fleet River Bakery.

What does Jell-O dress up as for Halloween? Halloween Jigglers, duh!

Because "Fun Size" is a lie: Ideas for how to put the "fun" back in "fun size".

Peanut Butter Cookie Pops: Scary-cute fun!

Things I want to eat: Choc-O-Lantern Fudge Pop-Tarts, a special edition for Halloween!

Scary delicious: Halloween treats by Jacques Torres.

Pie in the sky: Keep this one in mind for your Halloween candy leftovers.

Sweet Memories: Candy Corn Nanaimo Bars!

More Sweet Memories: Messing with leftover Halloween Candy!