Leftover Halloween Candy

The idea of leftover candy doesn't immediately make sense. The stuff has a long shelf life, so it isn't like having leftover turkey around the kitchen. You can just leave it alone.

The circumstances under which you may want to do something about your leftover candy bars are these:

• You won't eat them. You bought those little candy bars for the trick or treaters, and if you don't do something with them, you'll be throwing them out in January.
• You will eat them. Even though it doesn't fit with your doctor's orders, your diet, or your concept of correct food consumption. If you don't do something with them, you -- or your kids -- will eat too much candy this week, and you'll regret it.

Both are good reasons for making plans to cope with that extra candy. It's simple, too. Sort the candy bars if necessary -- mint and peanut butter may not taste good together, and plain chocolate can go into your basic baking supplies. But most kinds of chocolate candy bars can just be chopped up and mixed together. Then you can do these things with them:

• Stir them into a simple sugar cookie dough (reduce the sugar) and bake them. Pop them into the freezer for your holiday goodie boxes.
• Use them to decorate the tops of cakes, sprinkle them over warm brownies, or use them as a topping for cream pies at Thanksgiving. Just store your chopped candy bars in the freezer and you'll have interesting toppings throughout the holiday season.
• Soften plain vanilla ice cream slightly and stir it in for a designer ice cream experience. Do the same thing with puddings or mousse desserts.
  

If you've managed to end up with lots of identical candy bars, check out the Candy Bar Recipe Collection for recipes using specific types of candy bars. Snickers Apple Salad sounds disgusting to me, but you may be braver than I am.