82: Candy Corn on the Cob

I don’t really like loose corn. I really like corn-on-the-cob. And I like candy corn, so it follows that I would probably love candy-corn-on-the-cob. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen candy-corn-on-the-cob. So I must make it.

My original plan was to find a good recipe for homemade candy corn, make a batch, mold a cob, and stick candy corn in it while it was still warm and sticky.

So, I made a batch of candy corn dough. The ingredients are basically sugar, sugar, sugar, and sugar.

And while it was still warm (like burn your fingertips warm), I started sticking candy corn in the cob. And, just as fast it started falling out. So, I melted the tips of the kernels on a hot skillet, and then stuck them to it… and that worked worse.

It became obvious that making a cob and sticking things to it was not a feasible plan. These candies are too fragile and structurally unsound to do that.

My backup plan was a rice krispie treat cob, but I figured that would have similar results, so I had to formulate another plan quickly. Here’s what I ended up doing.

I needed a way to stand up the candy and expose the tips, but candy corn is round. Sugar in a pan did the trick.

Then I arranged the kernels in nice little rows. leaning them inward so all the tips would touch each other.

Once everything was in line, I moved it over to a paper towel tube to shape it into a half-ear. I think you can see where this is going, especially if you noticed that bowl of white chocolate chips over there. I tried to melt the white chocolate, but I am chronically impatient, so I ended up burning it and overcooking it. Frustrated with the whole thing and running low on white chocolate, I just switched to regular brown chocolate. Plan D.

Then I slathered in some chocolate, making sure to get it in the crevices, and forming the ear of corn as I went. After a few minutes in the freezer…

I flipped it out, and got really excited. It looked amazing! The kernels even naturally fell into that slight spiral shape.

I took this picture just in case I screwed it up after this point, so I could lie and say I made the whole thing. It’s a big ear of corn, but it is unmistakably an ear of corn. I still had another half to make.

The second half went smoothly. Here it is waiting to be chocolated. After I laid down the chocolate on this half, I put the first half on top, and stuck the whole thing in the freezer.

I made the second half bigger, because I was more comfortable with the process. Now it’s just a matter of trimming it up.

And it’s done. You can dip individual kernels in chocolate to patch any holes you have along the seam.

Here you can see the seam. It’s not bad at all, the pattern just gets a little wonky. If you want to try it out yourself, I recommend it. Just buy more candy corn than you think you need. There’s like a 50% breakage rate on those things.

Successful project, and just in time. The week’s over in a few hours.

Update:

Megan said, “Let’s eat it!” so we did. I took the first bite and was thrilled to find that it works like real corn.

I didn’t know what to expect. I thought the cob might crumble or break. Nope. The kernels broke off at the whites, and the cob looked fantastic.

You can actually eat it the same way as corn on the cob. And when your done, you have a cob you can eat. If I had only made the cob out of white chocolate like I planned, this would look perfect. You can see a little spot in there where I have a little bit of white chocolate. Phenomenal.