Just Cook It!: ‘Tis the season for candy — and a lot of it
Tonight is the night.
It’s Halloween, and with all of the costume wearing, trick-or-treating, and parades that have been happening over the past week, I don’t want you to forget that tonight is the most important night of all.
Halloween is really about – candy and A LOT of it.
Halloween is the second highest grossing commercial holiday after Christmas. Five of the biggest candy selling days of the year all happen during the month of October. More candy is sold on Oct. 28 than on any other day throughout the year. Not to mention that Oct. 30 is National Candy Corn Day.
Candy during Halloween is a big deal. The kids love it and so do adults. If a parent claims to have never raided their child’s bag of treats after a long day of trick-or-treating, they simply aren’t being truthful. Candy will make you do crazy things, and it’s a good thing that some crazy behavior is encouraged during Halloween.
A lot of different candies are shared during Halloween, and we all have our favorites. Here are my top 5:
Candy number five on my list is the light and fluffy 3 Musketeers bar. There’s just something magical about that chocolate covered fluffy whipped chocolate bar. That magic is what landed it on the top five list. The original 3 Musketeers bar had three pieces in one package – one chocolate, one strawberry, and one vanilla hence the name 3 Musketeers. Chocolate alone is enough to land it at number five on my list.
For my number four candy, I would simply like to ask you to “Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.” I’m fairly certain that most people love those chocolate-covered wafers. What’s even more exciting is that you get two to four chocolate-covered wafers per pack and that always makes me feel like I’m getting a great deal along with a great candy bar.
Number three was a tough call for me because in my heart I wanted this particular candy to be higher on list. However, the number three spot on my list goes to the Snickers bar. It’s hard to beat that nougat topped with caramel and peanuts enrobed in milk chocolate. It’s so hard in fact that only two other candies actually did beat it.
At number two we have one of my all-time personal favorite candies at any point throughout the year (not just Halloween). The Twix bar. The cookie layered with caramel and covered in chocolate (to be politically correct the left Twix bar is cloaked in chocolate) is basically a perfect pair of candy bars. As a youngster, I would frantically dig through my trick-or-treat bag hoping to find another one in there somewhere, and I still do if I can get my hands on a trick-or-treat bag. To this day I don’t believe there is a better candy bar combination. It’s simple yet has a great textural element with the cookie and a complex profile with the sweetness of the chocolate and a slight saltiness in the caramel. In my opinion It’s as close to perfect as you can get.
If the Twix is indeed as close to perfect as you can get for a candy bar then why is it number two on my list? The answer is that it would be number one any other time of the year but during Halloween a seasonal favorite actually bumped it to the number two spot.
The number one Halloween candy on my list (drumroll please) is – the Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkin. Available mainly during September and October, these pumpkin shaped-peanut butter cups are simply delightful. Not only do they look the part by being a pumpkin, but for some reason they taste so much better than the traditional Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Don’t get me wrong, the traditional cups are good too, just not as good as the pumpkins.
I would like to wish you and yours a very happy and safe Halloween. For today, go ahead and grab a handful of candy and – Just Eat It!
Send me all of your food/cooking related questions by e-mail to hsfeatures@heraldstandard.com!
Mario J. Porreca of Belle Vernon is a food personality, author, and the host of Just Cook It on WMBS Radio 590 AM. His website is www.JustCookIt.net.