Making Vegan Candy Corn - A First Attempt

Candy corn screams fall. People either love it or hate it, but for those who have chosen a vegetarian or vegan diet, candy corn becomes the unattainable.Thanksgiving or Halloween is often celebrated with candy corn. Honey is a common ingredient, but for those who eat honey, gelatin is the big problem. For the last few years, I have been looking on the back of bag after bag of candy corn, hoping come across a brand that was intentionally or accidentally vegan. It is possible to find, however, after some research, I came across a number of vegan recipes to try my hand at homemade candy corn. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the others vegans and vegetarians in my life like it too.

There were a number of recipes to choose from. I chose a recipe from tablespoon.com as a base recipe after reading through multiple others: https://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/how-to-make-vegan-candy-corn/dd09e66e-5ae9-429c-80c5-e8bf73fe8cca?p=1 (After reading through multiple recipes, I can't help but tweek it based on preferences, local availability, and what I already have on hand.)

I was optimistic about my first attempt at making candy corn. I made a few adjustments based on preference and availability. I gathered by ingredients from things I already had on hand, as well as items I could find at a local store.

The recipe I picked (check out link above for measurements & details) included:

• coconut oil, softened
• brown rice syrup (which I had trouble finding around here) - substituted to agave (used in some of the other recipes I found)
• powdered sugar
• tapioca flour - however I used almond flour for taste, since some of the recipes I found used almond butter
• vanilla extract
• food coloring

Check out PETA's Baking Ingredient Checklist or PETA's Ingredient List to reference for your next shopping trip.

I combined all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl, and mixed well per the instructions. (Making notes as I went.)

After kneading the mixture with extra almond flour on a floured board (almond flour, of course, not wheat) I ended up with about a handful of a dough-like mixture. It wasn't quite the play-dough like consistency I was expecting, but it tasted pretty good and I wasn't about to give up. The almond flour didn't seem to be absorbing the wetter ingredients very well.

 I divided the mixture into three equal balls of, coloring one orange, one yellow, and leaving one the white color.  Adding the liquid food coloring only made the mixture stickier and a bit harder to work with. (The original recipe called for gel food coloring, but I used what I had on hand.)

I rolled pieces of the three colors into thin snakes and formed the three color strips on the floured board (again, almond flour, but wheat). It was sticky and delicate, but I used smaller amounts so make it more manageable.

I covered a couple sheets pans with foil as I started to cut the strips of tri-colored candy into triangle shapes and mold slightly as needed. I placed the triangle shapes onto the pan, laid out so not to touch. They needed to lay out for 24 hours so they could air dry and set up.

The taste was reminiscent of the candy corn I remembered, but the texture of the almond flour wasn't right and made it difficult to work with.

I picked up tapioca flour and gel food coloring for a second attempt with high hopes.