By Halloween is this week and I have feelings about Halloween. Specifically, I have feelings about the candy. American candy is a crime against sweetness, mi amor. Chocolate that tastes like wax. Gummies that taste like chemicals. Those little orange peanut things that taste like nothing and look like something from a science experiment. In Puerto Rico, our candy is dulce de leche and coconut kisses and guava paste with white cheese, and these are real sweets made by real people with real ingredients, not manufactured in a factory by robots who have never tasted joy.
But Sofia loves Halloween. She is sixteen and technically too old for trick-or-treating but she is going to a party with friends and she is dressing as a cat, which requires black clothes and ears and a tail and approximately two hours of makeup preparation, which I think is excessive for a cat but I am not the one going to the party. I gave her my black eyeliner. She said, Mami, this eyeliner is from 1998. I said, Good eyeliner does not expire, Sofia. She looked skeptical. She used it anyway.
At the hospital, the dietary department decorated the cafeteria with paper pumpkins and fake spiderwebs, which I allowed because morale matters, and then someone put a skeleton next to the salad bar, which I removed because we are a hospital and skeletons next to food is not the atmosphere I am cultivating. I replaced it with a cornucopia of fall vegetables — calabaza, butternut squash, sweet potatoes — because autumn decorations should celebrate abundance, not death. The staff thought I was being dramatic. I was being accurate.
Made tembleque for a church potluck on Sunday — coconut pudding, smooth and cold, dusted with cinnamon. It is the simplest dessert I make and somehow the most beloved. Everyone at church asks for my tembleque. Dona Mirta, who I have forgiven for the pasteles incident but not forgotten, brought her own dessert — a tres leches cake that was, I will admit under no legal compulsion, quite good. I told her so. She looked like I had given her the Nobel Prize. I said, The cake is good, Mirta. The pasteles situation remains unresolved in my favor but the cake is good. She laughed. I laughed. We are at peace. For now.
Eduardo took Sofia to the store for last-minute costume supplies and came home with a bag of candy corn, which he ate on the couch while watching the news. Candy corn. My husband, a grown man, eating candy corn voluntarily. I have been married to this man for twenty-eight years and I still do not understand everything about him. Some mysteries are not meant to be solved. Some mysteries are candy corn.
I watched Eduardo sit there with his candy corn, perfectly content, and I thought: this man has been eating candy corn for twenty-eight years and it has never once occurred to him to be embarrassed about it. There is something almost admirable in that. So instead of asking questions that have no good answers, I went to the kitchen and made something with the rest of the bag — because if candy corn is going to be in my house, it will at least earn its place. These milkshakes are ridiculous and festive and Eduardo drank his in about four minutes, which I am choosing to take as a compliment.
Candy Corn Milkshakes
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 3 cups good-quality vanilla ice cream, slightly softened
- 3/4 cup whole milk, divided
- 1/2 cup candy corn, plus a small handful for garnish
- 4 drops yellow food coloring
- 4 drops orange food coloring
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Whipped cream, for topping
- Pinch of flaky sea salt (optional, but recommended)
Instructions
- Melt the candy corn. Place the 1/2 cup of candy corn in a small microwave-safe bowl with 2 tablespoons of the milk. Microwave in 20-second intervals, stirring between each, until the candy corn is fully melted and smooth, about 60 to 80 seconds total. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
- Blend the base. Combine the vanilla ice cream, remaining milk, vanilla extract, and the cooled candy corn mixture in a blender. Blend on high until smooth and creamy, about 30 seconds. Taste — it should be sweet, vanilla-forward, and unmistakably Halloween.
- Divide and color. Pour half the milkshake into a separate bowl or large measuring cup. Stir the yellow food coloring into one portion and the orange food coloring into the other, mixing each until the color is fully incorporated.
- Layer the glasses. Pour the yellow milkshake into the bottom of two tall glasses, filling each about halfway. Slowly pour the orange milkshake over the back of a spoon held just above the yellow layer so it settles gently on top, creating a two-toned effect reminiscent of candy corn’s classic stripe.
- Garnish and serve. Top each glass with a generous swirl of whipped cream. Press a few whole candy corn pieces into the cream and finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt if using. Serve immediately with a wide straw or a long spoon.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 70g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 135mg