Ick or treat? – 7 facts about candy corn you didn’t know . . . or do you?

1.  It’s got real “corn” in it . . . corn syrup.

Each kernel has three colors, about 7 calories and a lot of sugar.

Each year, manufacturers produce more than 35 million pounds of the humble tricolored candy – almost 9 billion pieces.

2.  It actually looks like corn

When candy corn first came out, roughly half of Americans worked on farms, and the treat was designed to look like chicken feed.

Stack it up, the candy looks exactly like an ear of corn.

3.  People love it or hate it

For an innocuous little treat, candy corn can spark strong opinions.  Like fruit cake some believe that

manufacturers just collect and resell the same candy kernels year after year, because nobody actually eats the stuff.

But the treat scored first or second for preferred Halloween munch in most states,

Are you a candy corn lover?

4.  It used to be made by hand in large kettles

Candy corn is not a modern invention.  It dates to the 1880s, before the automobile and the commercial telephone. The Goelitz Candy Co. began making it in 1900 before the family-run operation changed its name to the Jelly Belly Candy Co., which still produces candy corn today.

In the early days of the 20th century, workers cooked sugar, corn syrup, marshmallow and other ingredients into a slurry in large kettles and then poured the warm mixture by hand into cornstarch trays imprinted with the kernel shape.

Today it’s untouched by human hands – machines do almost all the work.

5.  There’s a proper way to eat it

Many people believe that candy corn should be nibbled in sequence.

While almost half of candy corn consumers gobble the whole piece at once, 43% start with the narrow white end, according to a survey by the National Confectioners Association.

Another 10%  begin eating the wider yellow end first.

Which end do you nibble first?

6.  It can be deep-fried

Of course it can. Amy Erickson has posted a recipe on her food blog, Oh Bite It!, that involves rolling three or four candy corn kernels in a ball of dough and then frying them in hot oil.

Does frying make EVERYTHING better?

7.  It’s a beer

If you don’t like eating candy corn, now you can just opt to drink it.

Wisconsin’s Westallion Brewing Company created Candy Corn Cream Ale, which was “brewed to smell and taste like candy corn with notes of vanilla and cream.”

Tempted?

click & Look at our no-candy-corn-collection!

https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/living/candy-corn-facts/index.html