Iconic & Most Popular Halloween Candy

It’s all about the candy. Halloween night booty, whether you’re a kid or a parent, aunt or uncle, is one of the best parts of Halloween.

As kids, once we got home and sorted it, it was time to barter with our siblings. Get all your favorites and weed out it unwanted.

This article will cover candies that just seem to scream Halloween.

Let’s review, shall we?

The Iconic Halloween Candy

Let’s Get Corny
candy corn
candy corn

Candy corn is THE Halloween candy. It’s tricolored triangular-shaped sugar. Yup, almost pure sugar. Start with sugar, throw in some corn syrup (liquid sugar), fondant (supersaturated water with sucrose [a sugar]), a little marshmallow (sugar, corn syrup, water, gelatin), some artificial coloring, and some binders (wax and water).

Shown here are the traditional colors of white, orange, and yellow, but there are variations.

  • “Indian Corn” shows up around Thanksgiving. Brown replaces the yellow.
  • “Reindeer Corn” is white, green, and red.
  • “Cupid Corn” is white, pink, and red.
  • “Bunny Corn,” only two-colors, a white tip and a variety of pastel bottoms.
The Sweet and Tart of It All
SweeTarts
SweeTarts

Pixy Stix are a sweet and sour powder, originally designed as a drink mix, is come in a straw like package. You just pour it into your mouth straight from the straw-like wrapper. It’s high up on the list of top Halloween candy surveys. (OK, I have no proof, but I strongly suspect it.)

Well, some parents complained about the grainy, stickiness of Pixy Stix, so the company compressed it and introduced SweeTarts.

pumpkin peeps
jack-o-lanterns peeps
When Peeping is Okay

Sugar-coated marshmallows first made their debut in 1953 on Easter in the form of chicks, Since then, they have expanded to takeover the other holidays. For Halloween, they have jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, Frankenstein’s monsters, and black cats.

Hard Candy and Chewy Chocolate Combo

Tootsie Pops! The melding of two worlds: hard candy and chewy chocolate. Tootsie Pops are round lollipops in fruit flavors with a surprise in the center — a chewy chocolate tootsie roll center.

tootsie pop
tootsie pop insides

Note: The original flavor of the lollipop was chocolate. The fruit flavors followed.

Little Tablets of Fruit

Smarties come 15 to a pack in assorted colors and fruit flavors like cherry, orange, and strawberry. (Each color is is a different flavor.) They also come in tropical and “extreme sour.” They are called “Rockets” in Canada, so they’re not confused with the sugar-coated chocolate also called Smarties.

Let’s Not Forget the Miniaturized Chocolate

Who used the shrinky dink? Hersey did. They shrunk up their chocolate bars into bite-sized snacks. People loves these little treats, but I always notice people tend to snag only one type. Often one flavor is left in the bowl — it’s never the same flavor.

The flavors include:
  • Hershey Bar: straight milk chocolate
  • Mr. Goodbar: milk chocolate with peanuts
  • Hershey’s Special Dark Bar: dark chocolate
  • Krackel Bar: milk chocolate with crisped rice

Other companies caught on, including Mars, Incorporated, who now shrink there candy bar too.

The Most Popular Halloween Candy

According to two surveys, these are the most popular Halloween candies. The surveys are from CandyStore.com, who used their own private sales data over a twelve year period, the other’s from Monmouth University. The orders varies a little but these all made to top six.

  • Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup — in the top 2 of each survey
  • Candy Corn
  • Starburst
  • Snickers
  • M&M’s
  • Skittles

Tootsie Pops took seventh and eight place.

back to Halloween

⇴ candy corn from Pixabay.com; SweeTarts from Evan-Amos, wikipedia, public domain; peeps from Kate Ter Haar, flickr, (CC BY 2.0); tootsie pop from theilr, flickr, (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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