Lordy, I love candy corn. What is it about those little morsels of bliss? Is it the colors that draw you in with promises of toothache inducing sweetness? The colors that immediately remind us of Halloween? To be honest, what IS the flavor of candy corn anyway? When I sat down to think about it for a moment, I realized that I really couldn’t place exactly what the flavor is.
What I do know is that I had a stash set aside for these. Candy Corn Haystacks. Haystacks have been around for decades, in various chocolate/nuts/chow mein/pretzel forms. I had a hankering for some a while ago and those hankerings usually sit in the back of my head until the right moment arrives.
With the house move there haven’t been many “right” moments for getting into my kitchen and creating lately. There’s guilt niggling at me whenever I take a moment to do something that isn’t really productive. Baking sweets doesn’t really fall into the productive side of life when you have a house to unpack. I am not quite sure where baking sweets falls on the life scale, but I’ll wager it’s somewhere between “necessity” and “sanity saver”.
Yesterday, the kids stayed home with me as they both had rotten colds thus hampering any productivity within ten miles. They tend to do that, those kids o’ mine. They come with their own built-in productivity damper. I can’t help it. They’re cute and little, like to snuggle and do crafts and enjoy staying in their pajamas all day just like their mamma does.
That right moment had arrived.
Ingredients Needed:
2 bags of butterscotch chips/morsels
2 1/2 – 3 cups of chow mein noodles
1 cup of candy corn with extra for decorating
Oh, so simple. This is why it’s a perfect creation to do with kids on a day when they might not have the attention span for a bigger baking projects.
1) Melt the butterscotch chips in the microwave in a glass bowl stirring after each minute. Butterscotch chips are dang persnickety, they don’t melt as nicely as most morsels do. When you have most of the chips melted, remove it from the microwave and stir until the rest melt to make sure you don’t go too far in the heating process.
2) Dump in the chow mein noodles and 1/2 cup to 1 cup of candy corn, depending on how many you want mixed in.
3) Mix them all together, trying not to crunch up the noodles too much and getting a lovely coating of the butterscotch all over the noodles and corn.
4) Drop onto parchment paper in the size you like, we made larger ones knowing that the leftovers were going to my husbands work the next day and those guys like their sweets large and in charge.
Because the candy corn gets coated to make sure these look purty, push on a candy corn or two while the chocolate is still tacky and they will stay until eaten.
Let them harden and enjoy! They have to be eaten fairly soon but that shouldn’t be a problem.
Most haystacks have nuts in them and I think peanuts would be delightful. My family’s reactions were mixed on adding peanuts, my husband told me bluntly that peanuts would wreck these and that he thought they were perfect. My kids think peanuts make everything better.
If you are so inclined try out some peanuts. I liked how the noodles are crunchy, the candy corn is delightfully chewy- oh, especially after you refrigerate them!- and all the flavors compliment each other perfectly. Sweetly. Oh, so very sweet these treats be!
I’m off to sneak one out of the fridge because as soon as I wrote this up I started craving one. More creations are a swirlin’ around my grey matter as Halloween arrives,I just have to find more slacking time!
Love,
The Didn’t Wanna Get Out of Her Jammies Today Magpie
Candy Corn Haystacks Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups butterscotch chips/morsels ( 2 bags)
- 2 1/2-3 cups of chow mein noodles
- 1 cup of candy corn with extra for decorating
Instructions
- 1) Melt the butterscotch chips in the microwave in a glass bowl stirring after each minute. Butterscotch chips are dang persnickety, they don’t melt as nicely as most morsels do. When you have most of the chips melted, remove it from the microwave and stir until the rest melt to make sure you don’t go too far in the heating process.
- 2) Dump in the chow mein noodles and 1/2 cup to 1 cup of candy corn, depending on how many you want mixed in.
- 3) Mix them all together, trying not to crunch up the noodles too much and getting a lovely coating of the butterscotch all over the noodles and corn.
- Drop onto parchment paper in the size you like.
- Let cool completely then store in a closed container for up to 5 days at room temp or freeze for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
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EllenRFit says
I’ve made these a LITTLE healthier before by using Fiber One cereal instead of the noodles
A Closet Foodie says
Hi again Karlynn
I’ve made these for many years, with one change, I replace half the chips with P’butter. Either chunky or smooth. MMMmmmm
Cute little story from my working days:
I became friends with a young fella straight from HongKong so one day I decided to bring him some “Chow Mein Noodle Cookies” to try. He loved them but he asked (remember he’s straight from HongKong) “Why you say ‘Chow Mein Noodle?’ ‘Mein’ mean noodle.
It took me several minutes to work through the accent to realize what he was saying so now they’re ‘Chow Mein Noddle Noodle Cookies..
Lael says
I do believe I need to make those! The kid’s at school will love me:)
BTW we have a friend in common, Cori, here in Edmonton!
Karlynn says
Hey, very cool!