October 30th is National Candy Corn Day. According to the National Confectioners Association, more than 20 million pounds of candy corn are sold during the Halloween season.

The iconic Halloween confection was created in the late 1880s by George Roniger of the Wunderlee Candy Company, in Philadelphia. The first three-layer candy, it was made laboriously, by hand.
 
 
CANDY CORN HISTORY

Even with today’s machinery, it takes 4 to 5 days to create each piece of candy corn. Each kernel has 3.57 calories, and they’re all sugar (the ingredients are corn syrup, honey, sugar and food coloring, coated with carnauba wax, a wax from the leaves of a Brazilian palm tree).

The orange, yellow and white colors of the candy corn can actually be found in fresh corn kernels—though the colors are intensified by the candymakers.

Some companies create an “Indian corn” version, substituting brown for the yellow base color and a bit of caramel flavor (photo #2).

See candy corn being made in this video.
 
 
CANDY CORN TRIVIA

 
 
> The History Of Candy

> The History Of Candy Apples
 

[2] This Indian candy corn from Brach’s has a caramel flavor (photo © Candy Warehouse).

Or, you can make one out of a real pumpkin, and have pumpkin soup to boot.

 
If you’re making the soup in advance, you can keep the tureen in the fridge or a cool spot. We’d love to save and re-use the tureen, but we’ve never had enough freezer space to see how it freezes. If you do, wash the pumpkin tureen after you’ve served the soup, let it dry, freeze it and please let us know how it goes!

Decorate Your Tureen
The most breathtaking pumpkin tureen we’ve seen is on the website Phoo-d. The rim is circled with fresh flowers. If you have the time and energy—or simply want to see a beautiful photo—take a look.

Pumpkin Soup Recipes

Dress up a plain white cupcake for
Halloween. Photo courtesy McCormick.com.

A White House Garden Cookbook—which includes a collection of recipes and gardening tips from First Families—features a recipe for honey cupcakes enjoyed by the Obamas.

With less sugar and fat—better-for-you honey is substituted for most of the sugar—this recipe, when baked at the White House, uses honey gathered from the Executive Bee Hive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But if you’re not connected to Charlie Brandt (the White House beekeeper) or Michelle Obama, the honey in your cupboard works just fine.

You can make these cupcakes for Halloween, decorating with candy corn, orange sprinkles or other seasonal decorations.

WHITE HOUSE HONEY CUPCAKES

Cupcake Ingredients

Icing Ingredients

She began a cost-benefit analysis on how much she might save by making from scratch six of the everyday foods she typically purchased from the supermarket and the bakery. Her initial experience gave way to Make The Bread, Buy The Butter, a delightful book with 120 recipes.

The author priced everything down to the last grain of salt as well as the cost of the utilities (in her city, 32 cents per hour to run an electric oven, 9 cents per hour to melt on a gas burner, 14 cents per hour to boil water). She did not include the cost of her labor.

Ms. Reese found some cost efficiencies that were worth it, and some that weren’t. The bagel recipe she used—the best bagel she’s ever had—costs 15¢ per bagel. A Thomas’ bagel is 45¢; a fresh bagel from Noah’s in San Francisco is 75¢.

Cream cheese, on the other hand, is something better bought—no matter what the savings. Home-made cream cheese just doesn’t approximate the thick brick we all know and love.

This energetic woman not only made her own jerky and Worcestershire sauce, but she also raised chickens in her backyard and attempted to raise goats to make cheese. (They ended up as beloved pets but have contributed no milk.)

You’ll chuckle at the adventures of this executive-turned-farmer as she lacto-ferments pickles on the kitchen counter, ripens cheese in the closet and tends to chickens, ducks, baby goats and a beehive in a suburban back yard. As for buying a pair of turkeys to join the menagerie in advance of Thanksgiving (to butcher and clean), “…the mountain of gore was chilling to behold…It felt more like cleaning up a crime scene.” The experience cost more than buying turkey at the supermarket—and the meat was much drier.

Jennifer Reese will entertain you. She will inform you. She may even convince you to try your own hand at “make it or buy it.” And you just might want to get your own baby goat.

Order a copy.

Read Jennifer’s further adventures at TheTipsyBaker.com.
  

Ethereal, melt-in-your-mouth marshmallows from The Marshmallows Company. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

When Canaan Smith was just three years old, he was scrambling his own eggs for breakfast and watching the Food Network instead of morning cartoons.

One day at age 4, Canaan commented on how clouds looked like marshmallows. He then began thinking about different flavors of marshmallows. He and his mom, Megan, made a batch of peach marshmallows that were a big hit.

At age 5, Canaan sold his first marshmallows to family friends. He decided to launch his own marshmallow company, and within a few months he was selling to a local coffee house. By the following year, 2009, he was selling both retail and wholesale.

Canaan was featured in the local newspaper, the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald Leader. It led to an appearance on The Suze Orman Show earlier this year. He’ll be back in December as one of Suze’s favorite guests of the year.

These all-natural pillows of paradise truly melt in your mouth. As marshmallow connoisseurs who have tasted the wares of some of America’s finest marshmallow artisans, we urge you to try them. They’re as gourmet as it gets.

The marshmallows are a wonderful light snack or a topper for hot chocolate. For a special dessert, dip the tops into melted chocolate and decorate them (with mini chips, coconut or graham cracker crumbs, for example). Make the best s’mores with these marshmallows and the best graham crackers and chocolate bars you can find.

A good corporate citizen, the Marshmallows Company donates 10% to Heifer International and sends marshmallows overseas to our fighting troops. The CEO’s next focus is on green energy to produce environmentally friendly marshmallows.

Get yours at TheMarshmallowsCompany.com.
MORE MARVELOUS MARSHMALLOWS

 
Want flavored marshmallows? We’ve got them at The Nibble Gourmet Market.