Category: Featured Content

A lively defense of this singular seasonal treat

Candy corn is still with us.

For 350 days a year, candy corn plays no role in our lives. And then, for a week or so surrounding Halloween, candy corn is everywhere — the candy itself, of course, but also candy corn-colored sweaters, and candy corn decorations, candy corn candles, and candy corn iconography.

Krista Fisher, the bar manager for Local Street Eats in Nashua, finds herself defending candy corn surprisingly often.

“I love candy corn and I get shamed for it pretty often,” she said. “As soon as I hear ‘candy corn,’ I’m all in. It’s like a sugary little treat. I don’t know why people would hate it so much. I love it. When I brought [a bag of candy corn into the bar], my other bartender was like, ‘Is that for you or for some kind of experiment?’ I said both. She was shocked and I was shocked. But I am definitely on the pro side; I’m a fan. I’m a big nostalgia girly anyway, so it definitely reminds me of childhood candy. But I like any sweet treat. I do not discriminate against candy. I like it all.”

’tis the season

According to Chris Guerrette, owner of Lickee’s & Chewy’s Candies & Creamery in Dover, candy corn definitely has a season.

“Candy corn is happening right now,” he said. He agreed that it can be a divisive food, with some people loving it, some who don’t, and a smaller subsection of customers who like it but ironically.

“But most people just like it,” he said, “but only during this time of the year. It used to be a product that we would carry year-round and we would get folks asking for it in May and December. Now there’s of course the silly versions of it. There’s Christmas candy corn and reindeer candy corn and five different flavors of fall candy corn like a s’mores flavor and things like that. During this time of year we bring in a few different versions of [candy corn] just to make our fall offerings broad and interesting.”

According to Jaime Metzger, the manager of Granite State Candy Shoppe in Manchester, candy corn suits this time of year.

“It is the perfect time of year,” she said.

Metzger said that at first glance it might seem candy corn sells better with older customers — it would make sense, since it has been around a long time and would be familiar to them.

“But kids get it, too,” she said. “It’s a mixture of ages. If a kid is whining, that’s what a grandparent will give them a lot of the time. It’s also more reasonably priced than, say maybe chocolate, and that’s a selling point, too. We’ll carry it through to the end of the year; then afterward it will likely go to the outlet store.”

“There are changes happening in the world of candy corn,” Guerrette said. “I’m not sure if you know the history, but the very first company that made candy corn was the Goelitz Corporation way back in I don’t know how long ago [1898, as it turns out]…. They were the first ones to ever make it, and that company … was eventually bought by Jelly Belly, which is a big jelly bean company. That’s big time. They owned it, and their candy corn was better. It had just a touch better recipe to it than most highly commercialized brands like Zachary and whatnot that you might find at Walmart. And it was really good. But, unfortunately, this year they announced they’re not going to make it anymore. Jelly [Belly] itself, as a corporation, was sold to an even larger candy corporation … and that corporation’s making changes. So something that is decades and centuries old is not going to be made by that company anymore.”

Guerrette said his plan is to sell traditional candy corn through the rest of this season, then see how its availability stands after things shake out. In the meantime, he said, “we actually have something interesting: We have a candy corn fudge that we make now. So it’s three layers that look like candy corn, and it’s a fudge, and it has a touch of a candy corn flavor to it.”

Candy corn flavor

And what is the flavor you taste in candy corn?

“Well, I actually think it’s just a little bit of vanilla,” Guerrette said.

“In our shop we have three different flavors; we have a selection,” Metzger said. “At our store in Concord they sell it in bulk, because they have more room up there. Here we just do it in [individual] bags, but we have a couple of different flavors. We have your standard candy corn — which in my opinion is sort of like a butterscotch flavor. We have s’mores corn, which obviously is a marshmallow-y flavor. We have Harvest Corn, which is kind of like a caramel-y flavor. And then we’ve got Caramel Apple, which tastes like caramel and apples! And people really buy it — the standard type goes quickly. But people love different flavors. I mean, who doesn’t love s’mores? My gosh. People get excited for that one.”

According to the website CandyNation.com, varieties of candy corn available in the world include gummy candy corn (presumably with a chewier texture); green, white and red Christmas candy corn; Valentine candy corn in shades of pink; Easter candy corn in pastel colors; blackberry cobbler; raspberry lemonade; caramel apple; s’mores; caramel; candy corn-flavored salt water taffy, and licorice-like candy corn sticks. Visit candynation.com/candy-types/candy-corn.

Making an ‘ear’ of candy corn

“By the way,” Guerrette said, “have you ever thought about why it’s called ‘candy corn’ in the first place? Because it looks like little kernels of corn, right? But did you know … that you can take pieces of candy corn and arrange them in a circle with the tips all pointing to the middle? It looks like a cross-section of an ear of corn!”

Once you’ve heard of the possibility of making a cross-section of an ear of corn, the idea becomes a surprisingly persistent one.

You will need:

• Two bags of classic candy corn — not a harvest mix with pumpkins in it or anything. No neon colors. Just standard old-fashioned candy corn.

• A microwave oven

• Popsicle sticks to stir hot sugar syrup with

• A microwave-safe cup that you have no particular emotional attachment to, because when you get done, it will have sugar bonded to the inside, harder than construction adhesive.

Spill a handful of candy corn out onto your kitchen counter. Arrange a dozen or so pieces in a circle, with all the tips pointed inward to make a circle. Unless you have very pointy candy corn pieces — each an acute triangle — the circle will be a bit larger than you had anticipated, with a larger hole in the middle.

Now put a small handful of candy corn in your melting-cup and heat it in your microwave oven until it has almost completely melted — 25 seconds, maybe. Quickly take it out of the microwave, give it a brisk stir with a popsicle stick, and dribble a little sugar-glue on the tips of the candy corn in the circle. The sugar will seize up pretty quickly, so you’ll probably have to heat it back up after three applications, for another 15 seconds. Keep doing this until you have glued all the tips together and you have what might pass for a cross-section of corn after a long evening of candy corn cocktails.

It is at this point that you realize that this process will probably go more smoothly if you add each additional candy corn individually. You can scoop a small amount of melted sugar onto the tip of a piece of candy, then quickly press it into place, and repeat that process once or twice more before the sugar sets up too much to continue without reheating.

The bad news: This project will take a very long time and will require at least a bag and a half of candy corn. You will also burn yourself.

The good news: It really does look good. “Rustic” is a plus in a project like this, so even if you were to give up on it halfway through, looking crooked and unfinished, it would be just about right for the seasonal aesthetic. You also don’t have to do everything in one session. You can glue two or three rows, then go for a run or binge a vampire show for a while, then come back and tackle more of it, until you’re satisfied.

Candy corn on the rocks

If you’ve ever eaten so much candy corn that your blood sugar has spiked and you’ve felt goofy and intoxicated, you might have asked yourself the question, why aren’t there any candy corn cocktails?

The bartenders at CodeX speakeasy in Nasha are a step ahead of you. The staff at CodeX use aliases in case of a 1920s-style raid. Bartender Rusty said the staff has been thinking deeply about The Candy Corn Problem, as they call it, for several weeks.

“Whatever we end up doing with a final recipe,” he said, “will usually be vodka-based, because it’s pretty neutral, and you don’t want to mess with moonshine; it’s got a higher proof that you don’t want to add any shots to. It just gets to be a little too much. When we’re working with candy, I like to use Starbursts. They’re really easy to work with. The sweetness is already there. The flavor is already kind of neat. So, seasonally, usually I’ll make a pink one — like a strawberry flavored one for Valentine’s Day. We call them Love Shots. With Halloween coming up, I have a sour apple watermelon pineapple Starburst [vodka]. I know it’s kind of wild, but it works. It turned out a nice green color that I used with some candied pineapple vodka that I was already working with. It was fun”

Mary Beth Carcellino, the owner of CodeX, said her other bartender, Stretch, has really embraced candy corn this year. “He wanted to be able to separate his candy corn infusions by color,” she said, “so we spent a couple of hours here the other night carefully cutting each piece of candy corn into pieces and separating them by color. He infused each into vodka, and now he’s got orange, yellow, and white candy corn vodka — THAT ALL TASTE EXACTLY THE SAME!” she shouted toward the kitchen before being reminded that this was Stretch’s night off.

Rusty’s piece of advice for infusing candy corn into alcohol is to find a way to contrast the candy’s overwhelming sweetness.

“You might want to add a little bit of citric acid, malic acid, depending on what kind of infusions you’re making, to kind of balance out the flavor so it’s not super harsh or super sweet,” Rusty said, “especially if you’re working with like a lot of fruity and citrus kinds of flavors.”

Krista Fisher is the bar manager at Local Street Eats in Nashua. She took on the challenge of developing a pair of candy corn-themed cocktails for the Hippo. She said she took her cues from the candy’s color and its mild (honey) flavor.

“I kind of ran with a little bit of both,” she said. “I think when I told anyone … they thought I was going to make something layered, to look like that, but I thought that was a little too — pun intended — corny. I didn’t think the route to go was the actual look of it. Plus, there was just a lot of oranginess,”

“So I went more for flavor and vibes,” Fisher continued. “I still leaned toward a fall theme, a fall feeling. The one that was most obvious to me was the old-fashioned, for sure, because nothing says fall like bourbon. So you get that sweetness from the candy corn still that kind of is in place. And then orange bitters will still just bring it all out. That was a no-brainer for me, honestly.” She made the candy corn into a syrup. “There is a sort of processed taste that is part of the attraction,” she said. “There was almost like a waxiness that was part of the charm.” Fisher recommended using a cup of candy corn to a cup and a half of water to make this sort of syrup. “That gives it a little viscosity to it,” she said.

Her second candy corn cocktail required a little more thought, Fisher said.

“I saw that there were a couple of things — I kept thinking about how to get a creaminess aspect without adding actual cream, so I went the route of treating this drink like a sour. I added an egg white in with some gin, that candy corn syrup, and then I had some toasted almond bitters also, which is kind of like, not a flavor you see all the time, but it’s a little more mellowed out than angostura. That was really good. It added another layer that seemed like fall and I think just complemented that sugariness that comes with the candy corn. And then I just muddled in a bunch of fresh orange so that there was a bit of freshness added to all the sugar aspect.”

“And that one was just phenomenal!” Fisher said. “The egg white gives everything this silky texture and this froth on top. That one was a killer. I was a really big fan of that drink actually. Every ingredient had a reason to be there.”

Boozy candy corn recipes

Candy Corn Vodka

1 cup (most of a large package) of traditional candy corn — not Harvest Mix, or something with pumpkins, or imaginatively colored candy. You want plain, traditional, yellow-orange-white candies, which will give you a lovely final color. If there are green pumpkins or xenomorphs or anything in the mixture, the final color will be brown. And let’s face it, color is about 90 percent of what candy corn has going for it in the first place.

1 750 ml bottle of plain vodka — again, the candy corn has a subtle flavor to it that we don’t want covered up by acai berries or whatever else they’re putting in vodka this week.

In a large, lidded jar — take the lid off before you add anything to the jar — combine the candy and the whole bottle of vodka. Stir the mixture well, then put the lid back on the jar and store it someplace cool and out of direct sunlight. It might take up to 24 hours for the candy to completely dissolve into the vodka, at which point it is ready to drink. There is no aging process for this particular infusion. Strain any tiny bits of sugar or wax or who-knows-what out of the mixture and use a funnel to fill a slightly larger-than-750 ml bottle. This almost certainly doesn’t need to be refrigerated, but the idea of putting it in the freezer to do ice shots with is intriguing.

Candy Corn Old-Fashioned

This is one of two candy corn-inspired drinks developed for the Hippo by Krista Fisher, bar manager for Local Street Eats in Nashua.

• 2 ounces bourbon
• 2 dashes of angostura & orange bitters
• 3/4 ounce candy corn syrup

Stir until well-chilled and strain into a rocks glass with a large ice cube.

Garnish with a few candy corn resting on top of the cube.

Candy corn syrup is a 2:1 syrup easily made in a pot on the stove, stirring constantly until all candy is dissolved.

I’m calling this Candy Corn Sour ‘Mischief Managed’

This is the other candy corn-inspired drink developed for the Hippo by Krista Fisher, bar manager for Local Street Eats in Nashua.

• 2 ounces London Dry Gin
• 1 muddled slice of orange
• 2 dashed toasted almond bitters
• 1 ounce candy corn syrup
• 1 egg white

Dry shake all ingredients to incorporate the egg white.

Add ice to your shaker and vigorously shake again.

Strain into a coupe or Nick & Nora glass.

The egg white will create a thick layer of foam on the top and a wonderfully silky mouth feel.