Popular Candy Types for Halloween Trick or Treat
If you’ve been hankering for all the different candy types available, then you’ll be happy to hear it’s that time of year once again! The time of beautiful autumn leaves, cool breezes, sweaters, and, of course, Halloween, with all its sugary goodness! Who doesn’t love the outdoor decorations, carved pumpkins, costumes, and mounds of candy? That’s why we’d like to take you through the origins of Halloween and then discuss all the candy you can trick or treat for the spooky season.
Festive and colourful Halloween Sweets
Halloween Candy Types
There’s nothing better than coming home after a successful trick or treat to look at one’s loot and assess the spoils. Some kids even get to display and exercise remarkable negotiation and diplomacy skills while exchanging with friends.
There are so many different types of candies. Let’s jump into a few of the most popular and well-known in North America today.
Chocolate Bars
Most chocoholics will agree that chocolate bars are among the best! You can find milk, dark or white chocolate, and endless flavours and fillings. Everyone can find a chocolate candy to their liking during Halloween. If you’re a fan of caramel, there is Caramilk, Twix, Snickers, Mr. Big, Turtles, and Mars.
Whereas if you’re into peanuts, Reese’s and Oh Henry! are great options. Coffee lovers unite with Coffee Crisp bars and for those obsessed with coconuts, Bounty comes in milk and dark chocolate. If you like a little crunch in your bites, choose Crunchie, Kit Kat, or Wunderbar. And don’t forget the creamy and delicious Kinder Bueno!
There are so many types of chocolate bars to enjoy
Chocolate Tablets
If all you want for Halloween is tablets of pure chocolate, there are some great options for you. Hershey’s, Cadbury Dairy Milk, Milka, and Jersey Milk are some classics in the chocolate industry. Lindt, Ghirardelli, and Godiva have so many different options of solid chocolate or with bits inside. Among them, Toblerone has a unique design of triangular tablets with pieces of nuts inside.
Chocolate Balls/Crunches
What could be better for Halloween than bite-sized, individually wrapped chocolate? Lindt Lindor, Godiva, Heart of Gold, and Hershey’s Kisses are all extremely popular and come in different flavours! Ones that have a bit of a crunch to them include Ferrero Rocher, Baci, and Maltesers.
Eggs Chocolates
Now, eggs might seem more of an Easter chocolate surprise, but they’ve become popular year-round! You can now get Hershey’s and Aero chocolates in egg form as well. Even M&M’s has egg-shaped versions. Some other iconic bite-sized chocolate eggs are Cadbury Mini Eggs, Cadbury Cream Eggs, and Kinder Surprise, of course.
Gummies
Next, people often give out soft gummies. These are great if you love sour, fruity, and chewy candies. These include Sour Patch Kids, Runts, Fuzzy Peach, Maynards, Swedish Raspberries, and Candy Corn. Halloween especially has Wax Coke Bottles and Fruit Gushers galore! If you want to switch things up a bit, the Big Turk chocolate bar has a chewy interior of Turkish Delight.
And for animal candy types, there’s Gummy Bears, Gummy Worms, and Haribo. What’s not to love? But make sure not to eat too much of these too fast.
Fruit Rolls
Although these are not always made from natural and healthy ingredients, fruit rolls are still delicious. And some of them actually do use real fruit, such as Welch’s Fruit Rolls, Pure Organic Fruit Strips, and Mott’s Fruity Rolls. Some that are yummy but use artificial flavour include Fruit by the Foot and Fruit Roll-Ups.
Taffies
What are the candy types that exist in between the realm of chewy gum and crunchy hard candy? Good old-fashioned taffies! Tootsie rolls are one of the most populars for Halloween. Other delicious ones are Starburst, Airheads, and Laffy Taffy.
Tootsie Rolls and other taffies
Hard Candies
If you prefer the satisfying crunch of hard candies, there are plenty of other choices. Some of the most famous treats fall into this sweet category, such as Nerds, Pop Rocks, Skittles, M&M’s, Smarties, Jolly Rancher, Rockets, Life Savers, Warheads, and Pez. Jelly Belly, Razzles, Mike and Ike, and Circus Peanut are also some of the beloved single hard candies. The only downside to these fabulous treats is that during Halloween, the candy boxes are so small that their contents last not for too long!
Hard and crunchy candies
Mint Candies
Some refreshing treats that are perfect for after dinner (even if your dinner is mostly chocolate and candy) include After Eights, Andes, Junior Mints, and York Peppermint Patties. As little pick-me-ups throughout the day, you can treat yourself to the iconic Mentos, Tic Tacs, Ice Breakers, and Life Savers.
Licorice Candies
Some candy types don’t attract universal acclaim. For example, licorice, you either love it or hate it. But that isn’t stopping us from enjoying rolls of red or black licorice like Twizzlers, or Jelly Belly’s. You can unwind them and eat them strand by strand, or eat a few at the same time. Who knows, if you haven’t had any in a long time, you might surprise yourself and come to enjoy them this time!
Licorice candies
Lollipops
The term “lollipop” apparently means “tongue slap” in Northern English, and they’ve been eaten for thousands of years! They are a true classic. Chupa Chups, Kojak, Maple Lollipops, and Ring Pops are some innovative and delicious ways to make your candy last longer and have it on a stick.
Chewing Gum
Finally, you can expect to find chewing gum in your trick-or-treat basket, such as Dubble Bubble, Bazooka bubble gum, Jawbreaker, or Juicy Fruit. You can even mix a few together and practice blowing bubbles!
Dubble Bubble (Tootsie Roll Industries)
Liquid Drops
If gooey isn’t just your Halloween candy and you want liquid candy types, you can hope to receive Warheads Super Sour, and Cry Baby mini drinks in your haul.
Cotton Candy
The unique fluffiness of cotton candy gives it its own category. There are many types of cotton candy street stands throughout the world and we will go a little more into detail about them in another blog. But for our Halloween purposes, Bubble Yum and Lucky Elephant are really popular brands that will last long enough to make it into a Halloween basket.
Marshmallows
The gooey puffiness of marshmallows is unequalled! If you want the whole campfire experience, there are Kraft Jet-Puffed, Campfire, Stay Puft, and Haribo. There’s also the chocolate-covered Whippet if you’re feeling like getting a little extra.
Caramel
If you’re a caramel-lover, Werther’s Original is a through-and-through experience. For a bit of chocolate with your caramel, Rolo is a melt in your mouth experience, and again, Turtles, Caramilk, Mars, and Snickers are all delicious caramel chocolate bars.
Candied Nuts
When you want something sweet but also nourishing, candied nuts are the way to go! There are different healthy Halloween candy options, including sugar-coated almonds, chocolate-covered almonds, and even the iconic salty-sweet Sesame Snaps. These may not be the sweetest of all candy types in the Halloween basket, but they are delicious!
Where Does Halloween Come From?
The tradition of Halloween actually goes back thousands of years. Many cultures all over the world have a long history of celebrating the end of the growing season with a variety of festivals. They usually included a nod to not only the dying crops but also the celebration of deceased loved ones..
According to Britannica, the name is a contraction of All Hallows’ Eve, a holiday observed on October 31, which is the evening before All Saints’ (or All Hallows’) Day. The celebration marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints and initiates the season of Allhallowtide, which lasts three days and concludes with All Souls’ Day.
The origins of Halloween largely goes back to the traditions of Celtic peoples, living in parts of what is now Ireland, the UK, and Northern France. They celebrated a holiday at the end of October known as Samhain to mark the end of the harvest season. It was believed that at this time of year, the dead would return. Some people dressed up in costumes, while others left out food and drinks to ward off any wandering spirits.
As time went by, the ritual of dressing up and leaving food out for loved ones became more whimsical. People started dressing up as ghosts and spirits themselves! Sometimes, it was done to perform and do tricks in exchange for food, and sometimes, it was done as a threat of mischief – satiated by the promise of a treat.
The practice of dressing up is most likely also based on a tradition associated with All Hallow’s Day called “souling,” where children would dress up as Saints. People seem to have an innate desire to dress up as something spooky at least once a year. This all would become the precursor of trick or treating, and we’re certainly happy to partake!
Halloween candies
Do you Know What Candy Types were Eaten in the 19th Century?
The first moments of modern-day Halloween in the 19th century had people giving out fruit, baked goods, toys, nuts, and even coins. But as Halloween became more widespread across North America, so did giving out different types of candy, specially spooky Halloween treats. For one thing, kids loved it. But it was also easier and less expensive. It really took off in the 1930s and became ever more popular after the Second World War.
Another catalyst around this time for trick-or-treaters getting candy was that parents were getting increasingly worried about homemade treats being tampered with. This was due to widespread rumours of razor blades and poison in candied apples. Although there were rare unfortunate cases where this did happen, it was isolated. But erring on the side of caution, everyone collectively started preferring packaged candy to homemade treats. And that’s how Halloween as we know it today came to be!
We hope you have a spooky, fun, and tasty Halloween this year. Remember to check out Dessert Advisor for all you need to know about candy types and where to get them!
