My mom makes chocolate covered peanut butter crackers every year and everyone loves them. They’re so easy and the perfect mix of salty and sweet. Just make your PB crackers, dip in melted chocolate (I use a double boiler so it won’t burn or scorch the chocolate), place on wax paper on a cookie sheet, and place in freezer or refrigerator until the chocolate cools.

You can do the same with graham crackers and marshmallow fluff, making smores.

Pretzels are also great covered in chocolate, and you can sprinkle nuts or white chocolate overtop for extra taste.

Melting white chocolate and letting it cool slightly, and placing in a ziplock bag with a hole cut in the tip is a great way to add graphics and visual appeal to your chocolate treats.

Using milk chocolate can be expensive, so I go a little cheaper and use chocolate and vanilla flavored almond bark. It taste just like chocolate, gives a smooth finish, and is much less expensive. Plus I have a slight allergy to cocoa and I can eat this and not have any problems. You can find this in the baking aisle of your grocery store with the bar chocolates and chocolate chips.

Whatever you decide to do, put it in a basket, or a clear bag with some festive ties and you’ve got a great and incredibly thoughtful holiday gift.

Caramel is a mixture that is produced when sugar has been heated until it melts and becomes a thick, golden brown liquid.  As you continue to heat it, the color will darken and the flavor will intensify.  Sugar can be caramelized by two methods - wet (sugar is dissolved in water and then boiled) or dry (sugar is heated alone until it liquifies).  When it cools, it will harden until cream or butter is added, making it into a chewy mixture.

Unless you’re well-versed on how to make candy, making caramel can be a daunting task.  Getting the sugar to the correct temperature without burning it, then transfering it before it cools - it’s enough to make you just buy your own and call it homemade.  However I found a gem of a recipe that makes a light, caramel sauce that is perfect for dipping cookies or fruit in, or for glazing brownies and cakes with.

Mix 1 cup of brown sugar and 2 tbsp of flour in a small saucepan.  Add 3 tbsp butter, 1/4 cup of milk and cook over medium-high heat until mixture comes to a boil and let boil for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.  Beat mixture with a wooden spoon until glaze begins to thicken.  Mix in vanilla and continue to mix until the glaze reaches the consistency of thick honey.  If the glaze doesn’t thicken up, add cornstarch a teaspoon at a time while it’s still warm and that should give you the consistency that you need.

So what is the number one selling Halloween candy? Surprisingly it’s not chocolate, but a Halloween staple that’s been around for over a hundred years - candy corn. George Renninger, a Wunderlee Candy Company employee, created the popular candy in the 1880’s and the confection was introduced to the public in the early 1900’s. The tri-color design of the confection was revolutionary for it’s time, and the public went nuts for it. But lack of machinery and equipment meant that candy corn was only produced seasonally from March to November. Nowadays you don’t have to look very hard to find candy corn, or feel silly for buying a bag to enjoy in the middle of the summer. This year, more than 35 million pounds of candy corn will be produced, equaling nearly nine billion pieces. If laid end-to-end, that’s enough to circle the moon four times.

A close second to candy corn for the best selling Halloween candy is the Snicker’s bar, which also happens to be the best selling candy bar of all time. The Mars family introduced this bar in 1930 and named it after one of their favorite horses. Since launching the original candy bar, a nougat center topped with peanuts and caramel and covered in milk chocolate, over a dozen different variations have been made worldwide. From Peanut Butter Snickers, made here in the U.S., to Snickers Hazelnut, manufactured in Australia. Even Slovakia had their own Snickers bar, Snickers Hard, which has a greater percentage of peanuts than do the original Snickers. Even the shape of Snickers has changed over the years, from the regular size candy bar, to “The Fun Size” given out at Halloween, and even smaller to Snickers miniatures. With so many varieties and sizes available, it’s no surprise why this candy bar brings in $2 Billion annually.

While everyone has their favorite Halloween candy, and chances are it’s one of the chocolate staples we’ve all grown up with (including, Reese’s Cup, which came in third place, followed by Kit Kat, Milky Way and M&M’s), marketers are still trying to push new goodies on the consumers for this billion dollar holiday. This year alone, 891 new candy varieties have been introduced and to make sure they stand out against the old favorites, they’re getting more colorful and more interesting. Jolly Rancher introduced a soda that is just as colorful and chocked full of sugar as it’s hard candy counterpart. Kellogg’s introduced Spooky Berry Twistables that seems to be what a Fruit Roll-Up and a Twizzler’s lovechild would look like. More varieties include new takes on some old favorites, like Orange Pumpkin Pop Rocks, ghoulish-shaped Tootsie Roll Pop’s, and even Marshmallow Peeps Cocoa Cats, which look nothing like the peeps we all know and love, and taste like chocolate.

When this time of year rolls around, people usually buy a bag of their favorite treat to enjoy for themselves, whether they partake in the holiday or not. Although I do enjoy a good Snickers every now and then, my face would always light up when a pack of Skittles would drop into my plastic pumpkin. Whatever your favorite kind is, you can be sure to find an abundance of it until November 1.