Ghosts.
Goblins.
And… candy corn?
Think of candy corn as comic relief from Halloween.
It’s cute, it’s yummy, and it’s not the slightest bit scary.
That is, until you look at the ingredients. Gelatin, corn syrup, FDC Yellow 6 Lake, Red 40, Blue 1 Lake…
Are you scared yet?
I’ve always loved candy corn, more for its festiveness and adorableness than for the actual taste.
So when I made these candies I wasn’t going for an exact copycat, but more of a fun and healthier and vegan candy corn substitute.
You might like them even better than real candy corn!
Vegan Candy Corn
- 1/4 cup raw cashew butter (or peanut butter if you want pb-flavored candy corn. Who knows… it might be fun!) (58g)
- tiny dash salt
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar or Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar (28g)
- Either red and yellow food coloring (you can purchase natural food coloring at Whole Foods), or a tiny pinch turmeric and a few drops beet juice
Mix the first three ingredients together in a bowl until it becomes a crumbly dough. (Note: if your nut butter is from the fridge, let it sit awhile or heat it up so it’s easier to mix.) If dough is too gooey (mine wasn’t), you can add a little extra sugar/sf sugar. Taste the dough and add a little more salt if desired. Now transfer the crumbles to a plastic bag and smush very hard into a ball. Remove from the bag and form three little balls, then add a few drops yellow food coloring or the turmeric to one ball and knead until it’s all one color. Do the same with the red. (For my un-edited “in process” photos, see the nutrition link below.) Roll balls into skinny strips—the skinnier the strips, the smaller the resulting candy corns, and press strips together. Cut into triangles or other shapes. As stated above in the post, these aren’t supposed to taste exactly like store-bought candy corn; they’re yummy in their own right. You can store in the fridge, but my roommate—the candy nut—says they taste best straight from the freezer. Or you can even bake them: 350 F for 3-5 minutes, then allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from tray.
View Nutrition Facts + Step-By-Step Photos
What are you doing for Halloween this year?
Are you dressing up? Or staying home and handing out candy? Or trying to console a dog who goes berserk every time the doorbell rings? Guess I just gave away my Halloween plans…
Link Of The Day:
That is just sooo cute!
Im definately dressing up, we’re having the party of the year! Will be a girly outfit though, not scary or slutty!
I’m glad these don’t taste exactly like candy corn, I never thought they had much flavour besides the taste of sugar. Unfortunately this Halloween I’m gonna be home by myself so I’ll just be handing out candy.
Love the idea! I am not dressing up for Halloween, no matter how much my friends try to convince me that a batman villain costume is a “good idea.” 😛
I think my dog needs a Batman villain costume. 🙂
Oh these almost look like Starburst candies! Can’t wait to try them 🙂
Ooh, I would love a recipe for vegan starburst!
These are just the cutest things ever, and I love the photos!
I love that you made hearts. We used to buy candy corn hearts every year for Halloween from a candy store near my house when I was growing up.
But in stores around here I only see regular shaped candy corn. It makes me miss the hearts, which I always thought were cuter.
We’d also buy them (pink candy corn!) in heart shapes from the same candy shop for Valentine’s Day. Can anyone else still find candy corn hearts, or did they discontinue them?
This looks great!
I love candy corn, but I had to give it up even before going vegan (and, more recently, dye-free) due to my corn allergy, and all the recipes I’ve seen before for making your own are basically corn-syrup cooked solid! Ick!
I am so making these tomorrow while I wait out the storm! (You could make these by candlelight as they don’t require cooking, right?)
Ick, the storm. I like your thinking. Stay at home and make candy corn. Now, to make sure I have all the ingredients so I don’t have to go out tomorrow!
Pure brilliance Katie! You have an amazing talent and gift~ As a health coach, I am always referencing your site. Thank you, thank you for sharing through your blog posts!
Heck yes, this is awesome!!! I always loved candy corn, like you, for the festiveness (is that a word?) more than the taste. I am so excited to try your vegan version! I’m not even a vegan, but I try to stay away from HFCS and artiticial dyes. I think I have turmeric in my cabinet from making mac and cheese once.
Thanks for a really adorable post!
Genius idea!
Question for any and every vegan: What do you pass out to kids when they come by? Non-vegan candy or vegan candy (home-made store-bought?)?
I’m a new vegan (10 months and counting!) and I’m not sure how to particapte in this holiday.
You could always hand out little party favors – spider rings, pencils, erasers, cheap plastic toys, etc. . . . like Dollar-Tree-type things.
Also, you could always buy things like bags of pretzels or chips – not exactly healthy, but vegan! 🙂 If you’re willing to spend a little more, you can actually buy boxes of vegan chocolate bars, such as Justin’s Dark Chocolate Peanut butter cups (here: http://www.amazon.com/Justins-Dark-Choc-Butter-Milk/dp/B007HD4TOG/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351447858&sr=8-2-fkmr2&keywords=justins+peanut+butter+cups) or Oskri mini Chocolate-Coconut Bars, which are a lot like Mounds bars (here: http://www.amazon.com/Oskri-Coconut-Original-Chocolate-0-88-Ounce/dp/B003QWGG0M).
Good luck! 🙂
I would love to hand out something homemade, but in this day and age I just don’t think that would work :(. This year I’m going to a party, so I’m not handing out candy… but one year in the past, I handed out Swedish Fish, which are vegan.
You can find a list of vegan candy here: http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=4487&catId=2
I’m planning to hand out party favours like Sunnie said (rings, toys, etc) and I’m making “healthier” sugar cookies. I guess that is quite unorthodox, but aside from the vegan issue, I’m new to the neighborhood I live in and I don’t know if we’ll even get any trick or treaters. At my last apartment, my housemates bought two huge bags of candy and we didn’t get a SINGLE trick or treater and the sweets were still around months later. Ugh! At least if I get no kids coming to my house, I can eat the cookies myself. 😉 Like Katie said, though – Swedish fish are a great vegan-friendly candy to hand out, unfortunately we don’t have them here in the UK.
Hey Katie! Love these candy corn! My Halloween plans this year…it will probably be cancelled for the SECOND year in a row! First a freak October snowstorm, now Hurricane Sandy! What else could go wrong???? Anyways, thanks so much for this recipe(:
How adorable are these?!?! And much less scarier than the “real” candycorns
I was just thinking this morning that I needed to get some more candy corn in me before the Holidays are over!
CCK – Are you going to a costume party?
Yes, actually.
Ohhh they look yummy and way better tasting then candy corn!!