Lauren: Homemade Butterfinger candy bites

The bites, before being covered in chocolate.

Have you ever been rudely awakened by the piercing banshee-like screech of the smoke alarm in your place of residence? Caro can attest to the handful of times this happened during our senior year of college. We still haven’t forgotten about you, third floor neighbors with the burnt popcorn habit.

Point being, this happened again today. Several unsuccessful attempts at sleep later, I decided to embrace the early morning wakeup call and do something. Clearly my first thought was to make what I’d been staring at on Pinterest all week—Butterfinger candy.

I’m really into Butterfinger. It’s flaky, and peanutty, and buttery, and seriously, what’s not to like? Upon viewing the candy of my dreams in picture form, and discovering that the recipe only requires three ingredients and a microwave, the decision was made and I got to work.

Homemade Butterfinger candy bar/bite:

(adapted very slightly from Six Sisters’ Stuff, although I was initially hooked by this photo from Daydream Kitchen)

Ingredients and supplies:

• 1 lb. bag of regular candy corn
• (one) 16 oz. jar of peanut butter—Note: I’d go with a natural peanut butter because there is so much sweetness coming from the candy corn and chocolate (this is my favorite).
• 12 oz. bag of chocolate chips. Guittard chocolate chips. Or candy coating as the recipe calls for. I had no idea what that meant and didn’t feel like leaving my house if it turned out to be something I didn’t own, so, my laziness, and thus chocolate chips, won.
• 9×9 in. baking dish—try to use Pyrex so that it can change temperature quickly and drastically without cracking.
• Wax paper
• Access to a freezer
• Access to a microwave
• A microwave-safe vessel in which to melt candy corn
• Some sort of double boiling contraption—mine is very low-tech. Read: a pot with two inches of water in it, topped with a steel mixing bowl to house the chocolate
• spatula/wooden spoon—NOT A WHISK. DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE I DID! I.E. believing that the candy corn will ever liquify. While it certainly melts down and becomes pliable, it at no point actually liquifies, and if you try to stir with a whisk, the huge glob of candy becomes lodged within the cage of the whisk. So, STAY AWAY FROM THE WHISK.

Recipe:

1. Use wax paper to line the bottom and sides (so that some overhangs the edge) of the 9×9 baking dish.
2. Dump the contents of the bag of candy corn into a microwave-safe vessel, and microwave it on high for one minute.
3. Remove the vessel and stir. Then place it back in the microwave and continue to microwave for 15 second intervals, stirring in between, until the candy corn totally melts.
4. Stir peanut butter into the mixture and try to mix it as evenly as possible with the melted candy corn.
5. Dump mixture into wax paper-coated baking dish and smooth out the top as evenly as possible with a wooden spoon/spatula. When that falls short, place another sheet of wax paper over the top of the mixture to press it into a flat-ish slab.
6. Remove the top sheet of wax paper and place the dish to the side to wait for it to cool completely. Or, if you’re as impatient as I am, put it into the refrigerator or freezer until it has completely cooled.
7. Once the mixture has cooled, remove it from the dish. I ran hot water over the bottom and edges of my Pyrex dish so that the mixture and wax paper would free themselves from the glass, and then inverted it onto a cutting board. I also ran a knife along one edge—between the candy and the dish—which dislodged the candy brick in one try. Once free, remove the wax paper.
8. You may have to wait for the block to warm up a bit, but once it is cut-able (yes, that is now a word), cut into bars or wee bites like I did, and either melt the chocolate/candy coating in a double boiler and dip the flaky bars (mine didn’t have enough structural integrity to be dipped) into the melted chocolate, or, lay the pieces on a cooling rack with a washable cutting board (all of mine are plastic, don’t use a butcher block for this)/wax paper/parchment/foil/whatever underneath it to catch chocolate drips, and use a spoon to haphazardly paint chocolate onto the bars.
9. Refreeze/refrigerate for the chocolate to harder, or, if you decided to forgo chocolate, eat!

The finished bites.

I couldn’t quite believe how much this tasted like authentic Butterfinger. I also have zero idea how someone ever thought up this recipe, and figured candy corn would provide the correct texture, but it does, and they’re great, and you should try them immediately if not sooner. Now get out and enjoy the beautiful day! And Target’s 2 bags-for-$5 sale on candy corn.