Who doesn’t love a gooey, caramel-y Snickers or peanut butter filled Reese’s Cup on Halloween night?! We all do! But, what’s even better is taking some of your favorite Halloween treats, chopping them up and tossing into these Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies for a decadent dessert. Make these yummy cookies, they’re the perfect way to use extra halloween candy!
Need a recipe for your leftover Halloween Candy?
Don’t get me wrong, I love Halloween. It’s so fun to dress up and trick-or-treating will always be a favorite tradition of mine. But in all reality, the sheer amount of candy left in the house on November 1st seems absurd.
When you find yourself with an abundance of candy after the Halloween festivities, the best way to put it to good use is by transforming it into delectable leftover candy cookies. Now, I haven’t tested these with candy corn as I’m a chocolate candy lover, but if you do, tell me below in the comments! Candy Corn worked great in these Candy Corn Rice Krispies, so I think it’d be delicious.
Whether you’ve got kids around who’s candy sacks are way fuller than they’ll ever need or you were passing out candy and had less trick-or-treaters than expected, this recipe is great way to use a ton of candy!
These Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies have a base similar to a classic chocolate chip cookie – slightly sweet, buttery, and soft! Once you’ve got your thick, crumbly dough them up with chopped up pieces of your favorite candy bars and enjoy those Halloween goodies in a whole new way.
And if you’re a cookie monster, also try these Kit Kat Cookies, these Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies, or these No Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies that I’m sure you’ll love, too!
Recipe Ingredients
- All Purpose Flour – The base of our cookies. I’ve not tried any substitutes.
- Cornstarch – An underrated cookie ingredient in my opinion. It helps create that great, crumbly yet tender texture distinct from a cake recipe.
- Sugar – We’ll be using both brown sugar and white sugar in this cookie recipe.
- Butter – Plays a critical role in the cookie structure. It must be cold and cubed for best results!
- Leftover Halloween Candy – Use whatever chocolate/nutty/cookie candy you’ve got. Veer away from anything gummy, fruity, or sour.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Why using Cold Butter is best for baking cookies
These cookies are worth dirtying the stand mixer for (I promise!). We need to use cold, cubed butter for bakery style cookies. It’s key for texture, structure, and the flavor development.
The temperature controls the spread of the cookie (aka it melts slower in the oven) which helps the cookies hold their shape and stay thick.
Have you ever tried to cream butter with an electric hand mixer? Yes and it’s a work out. Plus the results are never as consistent as your tried-and-true stand mixer.
Best type of candy to use
Although these Halloween Candy Cookies are meant to be “throw in whatever you’ve got”, I do advise against sour or fruit candies like Jolly Ranchers, Starbursts, Skittles, Swedish Fish, gummy bears, etc.
These cookies go best with chocolatey, nutty candies such as Reese’s, Hershey’s, Kit Kats, Mounds, Almond Joys, Snickers, Milky Way, Rolos – just to name a few.
Recipe FAQs
These Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies also freeze well, which is a great option to use up that candy and not have to eat more sweets immediately. You can can make a whole batch and store pre-made dough balls and bake from frozen for an extra 1-2 minutes, or store baked cookies in an airtight container or freezer bag after cooling. I suggest adding parchment between layers to avoid cookies from sticking to one another.
Have you made these cookies and still have more candy? Here are a few other ideas of what you can do with extra trick-or-treating candy:
– Donate it – Treats for Troops and Operation Gratitude are both programs that will donate your candy to soldiers and first responders.
– Make it into an Advent calendar
– Or on the theme of Christmas, save it to decorate your gingerbread house with
– Use chopped up on these Apple Nachos
– Freeze it. Yes, packaged candy in its wrapper can sit in the freezer for months!
– Add on top of ice cream or yogurt, just like at your favorite fro-yo place.
other recipes that are perfect for Halloween…
More Recipes You’ll Love
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating and comment in the recipe card below. Thanks for visiting!
Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies
Equipment
- stand mixer
- Measuring cups and spoons
- cookie scooper
- Knife
- Cutting Board
- Baking sheet
- parchment paper
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup cane sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups leftover Halloween candy, chopped, divided
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Use a stand mixer and with a paddle attachment and cream together butter and sugars on low speed until light and fluffy, approximately 4 minutes.
- Add the egg, vanilla extract, salt, baking soda, and cornstarch. Mix until smooth; making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Turn the mixer to low and gradually add the flour in with the wet ingredients, mixing until combined.
- On a cutting board, finely chop the leftover halloween candy. Then, use a rubber spatula to fold 1 1/2 cup of the mix-ins.
- Using a 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop (medium sized), and portion the cookie dough balls onto your baking sheet into ~12 even cookies. Gently press the remaining 1/2 cup candy pieces into the top of each cookie before baking.
- Bake ON THE BOTTOM/MIDDLE RACK cookies 8-10 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and middles have begun to set. Note: middles may look slightly underdone. They will continue to bake as they cool.
- Optional: Add a pinch of flaky salt to the top of each cookie and let cool for 10 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Notes
Looking for this in MyFitnessPal?
If you’re using MyFitnessPal, search ‘A Paige Of Positivity’ and find LEFTOVER HALLOWEEN CANDY COOKIES calories and nutrition facts. Disclaimer: for most accurate macronutrients and caloric breakdown, it is recommended that you input each ingredient into your MyFitnessPal food diary.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. It’s my passion to create dishes that can be shared with others. Tell me something you loved or just say hi!
These are absolutely INSANE cookies! I loved using reese’s and kit kats. so so good!
I included snickers in mine and the way the caramel filling oozed into the cookie was life changing. The crunch of the peanuts in them too, YUM
My kiddos (and I!) loved these cookies. So easy to prep and bake. My littles ages 4 and 6 loved chopping up their leftover Halloween candy to put in the mix. Will definitely make this one again!
Made this recipe for a football watch party and it was a hit! Everyone loved the cookies!
Hi Kim, thank you for calling that out. It should be 1 tsp. The recipe card has been updated to reflect this.
Thanks the cookies were delicious.
super tasty! We had a ton of halloween candy so this was the perfect recipe
omg courtney brought these to pilates and they were INSANE. 10/10 recommend
Perfect to make with all our extra candy!! We love doing m&ms, KitKats, and snickers!
Looks like a great recipe! Has anyone tried freezing the dough and defrosting to bake later?
Love to hear it! Prep like you’re about to bake, but then freeze the dough balls on the baking sheet for 1-2 hours. Then transfer to the freezer bag (this prevents them from sticking together). Hope this helps!
LOVE
I followed the recipe exactly, and my cookies turned out to be very crunchy and hard on the outside, but not fully cooked in the inside as they did not spread at all.
Hey Cass! Ahh, bummer to hear that. It sounds like it could be because of the oven? Always bake on the middle shelf to avoid a hard/crunchy cookie.
The cookie won’t be completely cooked once removed, but will firm as it cools. Happy to help troubleshoot!
my kids and I made these after school today. They turned out so soft and delicious. Will save this recipe again for next year!
Unfortunately this recipe was terrible for me. Followed it to a T but the dough was dry and crumbly, and all of the bottoms of my cookies burned while the tops were slightly under
So sorry to hear that, Theresa! It sounds like there could be a few errors for the dough being dry. If you used different mix-ins than I did, sometimes drier candies can soak up more moisture, so adding 1–2 teaspoons of milk can help pull the dough together. That’s often caused by the baking sheet or oven running hot. A dark baking sheet can brown the bottoms faster, and some ovens run 15–25°F hotter. Try lining the pan with parchment and baking on the center rack to help with even heat. You can also reduce the bake time by 1–2 minutes or drop the oven temp by 25°F. Hope these suggestions help in the future!
I just made these exclusively with milky ways as my husband and I don’t eat those but WOW they are amazing! I didn’t end up topping with the last half cup of candy because I thought it had plenty. I shaped them into tall domes and they turned out incredible
LOVE to hear this!
This recipe is so good! I know someone who does not usually like cookies, and she loved these ones! These cookies were very easy to make, especially because you need to use cold butter, so I did not need to take extra time for the butter to melt.
Overall, this is a great recipe and a good way to use up the abundance of candy you receive on Halloween. This recipe makes amazing cookies!