Candy corn glaze (?) fail

I am solidly #TeamCandyCorn. Melty little sugar nuggets, which I Googled while chatting with a coworker one day, are meant to taste like “wonderful blend of creamy fondant, rich marshmallow, and warm vanilla notes”, according to someone who works at the ultimate source, Jelly Belly.

On Thanksgiving weekend, I bought a little sampling of candy corn from Bulk Barn (because how much candy corn does one need?). Which I then decided would be an excellent cookie… glaze? frosting? dare I say fondant despite my general dislike for fondant?

Now… I did google for a recipe. Briefly. I think I opened one page and read it and then took in nothing of value other than “20 second intervals” and decided to wing it. This is not something I normally do when it comes to making things because uhhh, obvious reasons which are likely even more obvious because of the title of this post.

But really. I bought a lot of candy corn for like $6, so what’s a $3 experiment?

A small pink spatula with orange melted candy corn on it; above a glass dish filled with orange melty candy. Further back, a tray of sugar cookies.

Quickly I learned some very interesting things.

The first of which was candy corn cools/resolidifes much faster than I’d have thought, while still being quite warm to the touch. Like, almost immediately after removing from the microwave fast.

It also takes more 20 second intervals on medium-high to melt than I’d have expected (I also used one forty-second interval because uh this is an ADHD blog, how much attention span and/or patience do y’all think I have for this activity?)

I also thought I could’ve been wrong about this, but my hope was that if candy corn was melted and re-solidified it would go back to its natural candy-corny texture, which was why I thought it would be delicious on cookies in the first place.

The answer, friends, is no.

A doughy looking orange blob of melted candy corn in Kerri’s hand. There are some lighter areas in colour; the edges are rough and some sugar grains are visible giving the textural appearance of old play doh that is drying out

Kayleen: it’s giving play doh vibes

Me: but old play doh

Text conversation, 7:57 pm

It’s too bad, really because it was a pretty colour.

Anyways, I did put some on some sugar cookies (which I made from this recipe from The Toasty Kitchen, which are delicious. You should make them without trying to make no-recipe candy corn glaze.)

It’s too bad because they are kinda cute.

Half a tray of cookies with the closest 3 in focus; they have an orange fondant-looking topping that is slightly shiny.

Or at least some of them are, and some of them, uh, could’ve been. If not apparent, I had to kind of spatula it on and then could mold it by hand to be the desired shape which was kind of fun but also uhh, we’ve discussed my lack of patience for this kind of activity, have we not?

The good news is, despite the candy corn not returning to the previous texture, they actually do taste decent now that it’s the next morning and they’re fully cooled. Except the candy corn topping is chewy and not its semi-crumbly, waxen past self.

Puffy sugar cookie with an orange, slightly bumpy topping made of melted candy corn. 4 candy corn we dropped in front of it: one happens to be standing up.

Can candy corn be a cookie glaze?

On its own? Sort of.

With slightly more effort and attention to sciencey details (or a recipe) than I put in? Probably absolutely.

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