c-c-c-candy!!!

It's that time of year when there is candy everywhere. Halloween candy has already been out for months and if you love it as much as I do, it's hard to resist. This year, I promised not to buy any Halloween candy until the week of the actual Holiday. But let me say this- I'm weak and I'm already craving those mini Kit Kat's and Almond Joy's. 

And that's when these choco peanut butter crisps came into my life. A couple weeks ago I had a massive chocolate craving and when I received the Mast Brother's cookbook for my birthday, I had earmarked this recipe. It's definitely chocolate candy and it definitely makes a lot. If you're having a Halloween party, these would make great party favors thrown into a clear cellophane bag, especially since your guests would be amazed by the thought of taking home homemade candy instead of the prepackaged stuff. 

Choco peanut butter crisp

Recipe adapted from Mast Brothers Chocolate, a FamilyCookbook

Serves a lot!

Recipe Notes-

- The original recipe called for 2 Tbs. of peanut butter but with all the chocolate, the peanut butter flavor was lost completely. Either don’t bother with it all, or put enough in to taste. So I put enough in to taste- ¾ cup to be exact.

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds (24 oz.) dark chocolate

1 (½ cup) stick butter

¾ Cup creamy peanut butter

1 Tbs. honey

4 ½ Cups puffed rice cereal (aka Rice Krispie’s)

Directions:

1. Melt the chocolate and butter.

2. Add the peanut butter and honey, mix until combined. Then add the puffed rice cereal and pour into a 9-inch baking pan. Let set in refrigerator.

3. Once cooled completely, cut into chunks. Keep in an airtight container.

Halloween treats

Yes, I'm at it again with more Halloween desserts, but give me a break- I'm a baker after all! So here are 5 more desserts that should be spook-tacularly delicious!

1.

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Isn't this bundt cake amazing as a spider web? If you go to the link the recipe has you dye a vanilla cake red, but if you're going to do that then you might as well make a proper Red Velvet cake. A silky, chocolate ganache would be decadent on this. The "web" could be either royal icing or melted white chocolate.

2.

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These candy corn sugar cookies are the cutest! I also thought this was a great way to cut them and get that triangular shape without needing a cookie cutter.

3.

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These Monster cookies are really fun with the candy eyes- you can find the eyes here but I found them in the baking section of Target. They were originally inspired by the movie Monsters University but they're definitely appropriate for Halloween.

4.

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These witchy fingers are just a plain sugar cookie recipe and then shape them into fingers. Use a small paring knife to create the knuckles and whole almonds for the fingernails.

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These eyeball cupcakes are a little gross to look at, but I bet they taste good! Make any flavor cake and spread white buttercream as smoothly as possible. Place a lifesaver with a raisinet in the middle and then get a tube of red frosting and wiggle it out to make it look bloodshot.

I hope you get a chance to make one of these scary foods. I made the witchy fingers a few Halloweens ago and although they weren't perfect, they were a lot of fun to eat!

Not so tricky treats: five no-bake Halloween desserts

Continuing the Halloween theme we cannot, and will not, neglect the most exciting thing about Halloween- the TREATS! Here are my top 5 easiest Halloween desserts:

1.

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These pumpkin balls are made with crushed golden Oreo's & cream cheese (a delightful combination, in my opinion) and rolled in orange sprinkles with a pretzel stick in the middle. So easy and so cute!

2.

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Seriously, these marshmallow pops are for anyone who underestimates their skills as a baker. You don't even have to melt the chocolate if you don't want to. Buy the big marshmallows, some cute straws and black food coloring- 3 dots later and you have a tasty, scary ghost!

3.

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These pumpkin rice krispie treats don't seem much more complicated than the original recipe. I bet you could get really crazy and roll these into balls to look like pumpkins... maybe mini chocolate chips for the face so it's a jack-o-lantern... hmm, I might have to do that now!

4.

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This is a pumpkin ice cream pie, which is unusual for this time of year but if you live in a warmer climate, this may be just up your alley. Purchase a pre-made graham cracker crust and your favorite pumpkin-flavored ice cream (or take vanilla and mix in pumpkin pie spice). Once the ice cream is in the pie shell you could chop your favorite candies to make a face. What I think would be really fun is if you melted hot fudge (or took Hershey's syrup) and drizzled it all over the top to make a spider web pattern. You could do it with melted caramel too!

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I think you could get really creative with these witchy hat cookies and make them into piñata witchy hat cookies. Just get chocolate ice cream cones and crispy chocolate cookies (like the wafer kind) and the "glue" holding the cone down to the cookie could be melted chocolate. For the piñata, get candy corn, m&m's (any small candy will do) and fill the cone with the candy before placing the cookie on it. What a fun surprise it will be when someone takes apart the hat and discovers another treat! I would've been crazy about this as a kid.

Tomorrow I'm going to post my top 5 Halloween treats that may involve turning on the oven. They won't be overly complicated, just not as quick as a 5 minute treat.