Tuesday, Oct 26, 2010 1:01 AM UTC

Candy recycler blondies

An inventive use for leftover Halloween candy, this recipe makes recycling a treat

By Linda Shiue

more
- All Share Services

Topics: Halloween, Kitchen Challenge, Food, Life News

At school drop-off the other day, I ran into my friend Carla. We talked about what our kids were going to be for Halloween, and then she asked, “Do you know if there are any programs to give away all that extra Halloween candy?”

My usual plan is to remove the excess loot from my kids’ pumpkins when they are sleeping. The best thing to do then, healthwise, would probably be to throw it away. But even though candy has no nutritional value, I still can’t bring myself to discard it. So I recycle it: I bring it to work, where it somehow magically disappears within minutes.

Recycling is one of the new “three Rs,” which have traditionally referred to “Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.” These days, it carries an additional meaning– “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Kids in Northern California and in other eco-conscious cities and towns are becoming environmentally literate even before they learn to read.

I didn’t get the head start that my kids have, but I am getting my eco-education just by living in San Francisco. I just wish it could be more fun.

Now that Halloween is approaching, I’d like to apply the waste-sorting lessons I have learned to creatively reusing Halloween candy. I’m talking about compost.

Compost may not sound like an appetizing thing to eat, unless you’ve been to David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar in New York. The Milk Bar’s pastry chef, Christina Tosi, created a cookie with a cult following known as the compost cookie (™).

I had one recently and it was fabulous — a little bit of salt to temper and enhance the sweet, and added crunch from its compost pail of ingredients: coffee grounds, potato chips and pretzels to complement chocolate and butterscotch chips. The result combines the tastes of chocolate chip cookies with chocolate-covered pretzels and espresso beans. In honor of this brilliant New York creation and living green, San Francisco-style, I’ve adapted the compost cookie idea into a blondie filled with a bounty of Halloween candy.

Because blondies have more fun.

Ingredients

2¼ cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup coarsely chopped Halloween chocolate candy (I used 3 mini 0.5-ounce Heath bars and 11 Hershey’s miniatures — Hershey bar, Special Dark, Krackel)
2 tablespoons coffee grounds, for the true spirit of compost
¾ cup salty snacks, coarsely crushed (I used equal parts potato chips and pretzels)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375° F and grease a 15 x 10 baking pan.
Sift together flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.
In another bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
Add in eggs one at a time. Beat until very well combined and light.
Add vanilla.
Slowly mix dry ingredients with the wet until completely combined.
With a wooden spoon, slowly mix in your crushed Halloween candy.
Swirl in coffee grounds.
Very gently add the crushed chips and pretzels. Don’t overstir or they’ll break into crumbs.
Spread batter evenly into the greased baking pan.
Bake at 375° for 30-35 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean and edges are golden.
Cool completely before cutting.

More Linda Shiue.

more
- All Share Services

The week in 10 pics

close X

Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin
Recent Slide Shows

1 Comments

RSS Feeds

Get Email Updates

SALON

Candy recycler blondies

An inventive use for leftover Halloween candy, this recipe makes recycling a treat