Last updated: July 23rd, 2024
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If you’re wondering what to do with your leftover Halloween candy, try making them into Halloween Candy Cookies! Mix and match your favorite candy with vanilla or chocolate dough for a delicious Halloween treat.
Who else is excited for Halloween? We love this time of year, when the weather gets a little bit colder, pumpkins decorate everyone’s doorstep… and it’s socially acceptable to eat way too much candy. But isn’t it funny that no matter how much chocolate you manage to scarf down throughout the month of October, there’s somehow always a bunch of leftover Halloween candy come November?
If your Halloween is anything like ours (i.e. you bought a ton of candy and no trick-or-treaters showed up to your house), you might be left wondering what to do with all these leftover sweets! Look no further, because we have the perfect idea for you: turn them into Halloween candy cookies.
What This Recipe Entails
This recipe is much like baking your favorite chocolate chip cookies, however we’re adding in some chopped up leftover Halloween candy! This recipe includes the ingredients and directions to make 6 different Halloween candy cookies. Plus inspiration for making your own versions.
- Prep time: 50 minutes
- Cook time: 10 minutes
Chocolate chip cookies are our favorite dessert, so it seemed like a no-brainer to mix chopped up pieces of chocolate candy into cookie dough. Leftover Halloween candy cookies give you a unique way to continue eating all that leftover candy throughout the holiday season, after you’ve gotten sick of eating individually wrapped fun size chocolate bars for a month straight. The best part is, you can stick these cookies right in the freezer and enjoy them over the course of a few months!
Whether you’ve got Kit Kats, 3 Musketeers, M&M’s, Milky Way bars, Reese’s cups or any other chocolate candy, this leftover Halloween candy cookie recipe is the perfect way to use it all up. Get the whole family together on November 1st and make a batch for yourselves, or host a post-Halloween party and give them out to your friends. They’ll thank you for the delicious treat and the great idea for what to do with their own leftover Halloween candy!
Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies Recipe Ideas
We’re sharing 6 variations on this cookie recipe, made with our favorite leftover Halloween candy, that we hope will inspire you to invent your own delicious candy cookie concoction! Each cookie type uses either vanilla or chocolate dough as the base, chosen to complement the flavor profile of each type of candy. And just to make things extra sweet, we mixed in a few extra elements – chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, caramels – but these are totally optional.
It’s impossible to make a bad cookie when it involves Halloween candy… as long as it’s chocolate-based. (We wouldn’t recommend trying gummy worms or lollipops in your cookies). So we urge you to mix and match all your leftover Halloween chocolate candies however you like, using our cookie recipe as a guideline to get you started. No matter what combination you create, we promise it’ll be delicious!
Ideas For Cookies With Leftover Halloween Candy
To inspire your leftover Halloween candy cookies, here are 6 delicious flavors we made using our vanilla and chocolate cookie dough base recipes:
3 Musketeers Cookies
- Vanilla cokie dough
- Chopped 3 Musketeers candy bits
Kit Kat Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chocolate cookie dough
- Chopped Kit Kat candy bits
- White chocolate chips
Vanilla Milky Way Cookies
- Vanilla cookie dough
- Chopped Milky Way candy bits
- Baking caramels
Chocolate Milky Way Cookies
- Chocolate cookie dough
- Chopped Milky Way Bits
- Baking Caramels
M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vanilla cookie dough
- M&M’s
- White chocolate chips
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
- Vanilla cookie dough
- Peanut butter
- Chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups
- Milk chocolate chips
Our vanilla cookie dough is simply the base recipe we use when making traditional chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate cookie dough is a modification of the vanilla dough that replaces some of the flour with cocoa powder for a rich chocolate flavor. Both dough recipes are perfectly chewy, soft, and oh-so gooey when they’re hot out of the oven!
Mix and match your leftover Halloween candy with either flavor of cookie dough to make whatever combinations your heart desires. With these two delicious cookie dough recipes as your base, you really can’t go wrong!
How To Make The Best Halloween Candy Cookies
To really take your leftover Halloween candy cookies up a notch, you can mix in additional flavors! Here are two different techniques we used to flavor our Milky Way cookies and our Reese’s peanut butter cup cookies:
- Stuffed caramel centers: For the two Milky Way cookies, you can easily add an extra burst of warm, gooey caramel at the center of the cookie. After folding the chopped candy into the dough, roll out the cookie dough balls as usual, then flatten them between your palms. Place a baking caramel in the center of each disk, then mold the dough around it and shape it back into a ball.
- Peanut butter flavor: Add a scoop of peanut butter to the vanilla cookie dough base for a hint of peanut butter flavor in your Reese’s cup cookies. You can either make the vanilla dough as-is, then stir in the peanut butter before folding in the chopped Reese’s cups and chocolate chips. Or, you can mix the peanut butter into the wet ingredients when making the vanilla dough.
As for the rest of our Halloween candy cookie creations (say that 10 times fast), we simply folded candy bits into the dough and called it a day. It’s that easy to make delicious leftover Halloween candy cookies! My favorite were the 3 Musketeers cookies, and Alex loved the Kit Kat cookies. No surprise, since these are our favorite candy bars.
What leftover Halloween candy will you mix into your cookies?
Why You’ll Love Making Halloween Candy Cookies
We had so much fun creating different combinations of Halloween candy cookies. If you’re looking for an activity to do with friends or family this time of year, bake a batch of these cookies together with your leftover Halloween candy! They make a delicious themed treat for parties or potlucks, so it’s a win-win.
This recipe is the perfect way to make cookies with leftover Halloween candy and use it all up if you didn’t get enough trick-or-treaters… or if you impulse-bought too much chocolate on sale on November 1st 🙂 Mix and match your favorite Halloween candy with our vanilla and chocolate cookie doughs, or try one of the combinations we made, using the recipe below!
Happy Halloween!
Love this recipe? You may enjoy these recipes, too:
- Sweet Potato White Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Candied Bacon Chocolate Pretzel Bark
- Milk & White Chocolate Peppermint Bark
- S’mores Dip
- Frozen S’mores Bites
To browse more of our latest recipes and seasonal dishes, visit our homepage here.
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Halloween Candy Cookies
Equipment
- Stand mixer optional
- Cookie scoop optional
Ingredients
Vanilla Cookie Base (1 batch, ~30 cookies)
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1¼ cups light brown sugar tightly packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
Chocolate Cookie Base (1 batch, ~30 cookies)
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1¼ cups light brown sugar tightly packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
M&M Cookies
- 1 cup M&M's
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
3 Musketeers Cookies
- 3 cups 3 Musketeers bits cut into approx. 1/4" pieces
Kit Kat Cookies
- 2 cups Kit Kat bits cut into approx. 1/4" pieces
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
Milky Way Cookies
- 2 cups Milky Way bits cut into approx. 1/4" pieces
- 15 individually-wrapped baking caramels cut in half
Reese's Cookies
- 2 tablespoons peanut butter
- 1 cup Reese's peanut butter cups cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
Instructions
Vanilla Cookie Base
- Melt unsalted butter completely, then set aside to cool for at least 10 minutes.
- While the butter is cooling, add flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt to a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, then set aside.
- Add light brown sugar and granulated sugar to a large bowl, then add melted butter and stir to combine.
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and beat until well-combined.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients a little at a time, stirring until just combined.
Chocolate Cookie Base
- Melt unsalted butter completely, then set aside to cool for at least 10 minutes.
- While the butter is cooling, add flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt to a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, then set aside.
- Add light brown sugar and granulated sugar to a large bowl, then add melted butter and stir to combine.
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and beat until well-combined.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients a little at a time, stirring until just combined.
M&M, 3 Musketeers, or Kit Kat Cookies
- Fold in chopped candy and chocolate chips (for M&M and Kit Kat) and chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop dough into 1-1/2 tablespoons rounds and place on cookie sheet, at least 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until edges start to turn golden.
- Let cool for at least 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Milky Way Cookies
- Fold in chopped Milky Way candy and chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop dough into 1-1/2 tablespoons rounds, then flatten between your palms to form a disc. Place a candy caramel in the center of the disc and gently wrap the dough around it, then roll between your palms to re-shape dough into a ball.
- Place on cookie sheet at least 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until edges start to turn golden.
- Let cool for at least 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Reese's Cookies
- Add peanut butter to the dough and stir until well-combined.
- Fold in chopped candy and chocolate chips and chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Scoop dough into 1-1/2 tablespoons rounds and place on cookie sheet, at least 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until edges start to turn golden.
- Let cool for at least 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Notes
Nutrition
If you have any questions regarding the information presented in this post, please refer to our Nutrition Disclaimer here.
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Made the 3 musketeers version with the vanilla base and brought them to the office. They were gone in minutes.
Amazing! So glad you and your colleagues enjoyed this recipe 🙂