Here you go, oodles of things to do with those leftover candy canes. (Or maybe you want to pick some up on sale.)
Use them whole:
1. Stir your hot cocoa
2. Stir your hot tea
3. Stir your coffee (works for lattes & cappuccinos, too)
4. Stir your cocktail
5. Stir your milkshake
6. Snap off the hooked end and dip the straight piece in the chocolate of your choice for homemade “reception sticks”
7. Candy Kebabs (spear marshmallows and roll them in sprinkles or other crushed candies)
8. Valentine’s Heart (I’ll try to kitchen test this over the weekend)
9. Edible Fondue Sticks (best for marshmallows)
Crush them lightly:
10. Ice Cream Sprinkles
11. Cake Sprinkles
12. Cupcake Sprinkle
13. Frosted Cookie Sprinkles
14. On top of Whipped Cream in your Hot Cocoa
15. Roll marshmallows in them and eat them whole, toast them in the microwave or drop them in hot cocoa
Make Candy Cane Sugar:
16. Sweeten your Hot Tea
17. Sweeten your Iced Tea
18. Sweeten your Hot Cocoa
19. Sweeten your Coffee or Mocha
20. Use to rim your Cocktails (or this one)
Use them in recipes:
21. White Chocolate Candy Cane Fudge
22. Peppermint Four Layer Cake
23. Chocolate Mint Layer Cake
24. Chocolate Peppermint Bark (I like to pour mine into candy cups instead of making a bark.)
25. Make vanilla ice cream into Peppermint Ice Cream
26. Make your own Peppermint Ice Cream Sandwiches
27. Chocolate Candy Cane Sandwich Cookies
28. Candy Cane Chocolate Chunk Cookies
29. Candy Cane Brownies (these are vegan!)
30. Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels
31. Peppermint Meringues
32. Add to Rice Krispies Treats
33. Candy Cane Cheesecake
So, what can you add to the list?
Vodka infused with candycanes makes a peppermint schnapps-like infusion. Very good in hot chocolate.
One idea: peppermint bark. You can use any kind of chocolate, or chocolate melts - spread the melted chocolate onto waxed paper into a thin layer and sprinkle crushed candy canes on top. When hard, break into pieces. Yum!
This list is exhaustively comprehensive. I will save this in the recipe file that get’s passed on to my daughters.
I made “peppermint balls”—like rum balls or bourbon balls, but with peppermint schnapps—and rolled them in crushed candy canes.
melt some chocolate, then dip a pretty spoon into it and roll around in some crushed candy canes. or just melt some chocolate and mush in the candy cane and then cool it a little bit and make little balls of chocolate. haven’t tried that one yet though.
Another use of leftover candy canes is to break off the hook shaped end (which will leave a sharp end) and use it as a back scratcher…duh…why didn’t anyone else think of it?
I have used the small onea to make ornaments. Use them still in the plastic wrap. Take a red ribbon put between 2 facing canes and glue them together and tie the ribbon to make a hanger and you can take more ribbon and make a small bow for the top to hide the glue blob… They come out way cuter than i have described.
We had tons of candy canes and the big fat peppermint sticks….I added a bit of water and melted them on the stove. Makes a great peppermint syrup that can stay in the freezer for a very long time. The syrup can be used in cocoa, recipes, lattes, etc. Very simple to make.
My grandmother was very poor and the only time she got candy was at christmas time and it was a candy cane, and the only time she got an orange was also at christmas. So she broke off the crook and bit off the bottom and used the candy cane as a :straw” to suck up the pepperminty orange juice. it is best to squeeze the orange between your palms or roll on a table to bring out the juice. Cheap candy canes work best because they have air holes. It is a tradition in my house to remember grandma and to remember how blest we are to have plenty of food and each other. Kids love it
using candy cane syrup to make minty lemonade now! hoping for success
Tape them to Christmas card envelopes and gifts!
Just eat them straight, period. :D
When my stepkids were little, we used to drink our hot chocolate through candy canes. It takes very little sucking for the hot cocoa to bore a hole in the cane—and voila—a delicious, minty straw!
You can crush them up and put them up your nose, as a healthy alternative to cocaine.
They can also be sharpened to use as a very effective shiv to stab friends, co-workers, and faculty staff.
Since candy canes were originally intended to resemble a sheppard’s crook, you can quit your job and become a sheppard.
If you have broken left over Candy Canes, I like to melt down the broken pieces in a common household spoon, grab your closest syringe, and inject the melted Candy Cane syrup into your favorite track vein. You don’t have to worry about the syrup hardening inside your circulatory system, since the average human blood temprature hovers around 100.4 ferenheit. Not only is this a healthier solution to smack/heroin addiction, Candy Canes are a much more economical choice in todays middle east crisis’ and unrest, the Opium poppy fields of Afganistan and Pakistan are also suffering from continuous climate change, which more often than not yeilds a much more inferior product. I’ve taken the liberty to crunch the numbers, and you can be saving upwards of $3-4 dollars per hit, if you choose Candy Canes. Unfortunatly they hold one flaw..Candy Canes are seasonal, and are only readily available during the breif Christmas period. So you’ll need to stock up. I recommend purchaseing anywhere from three to four thousand boxes, in order to safely secure your stash will not be exhausted… Autumn is always the most difficult of seasons if you carelessly saturated your supply throughout the summer months. There is but one other small vice to injecting Candy Cane syrup into your veins,... you will almost be guaranteed to contract type 3 onset diabities, within the first or second time of useage, but don’t let that discourage you. Just visit the nearest hospital, and hint at symptoms of frequent unination, weakness and fatigue, and sometimes tingling or numbness in your hands or feet. This will almost certainly help the medical staff speed up your diagnosis. Congratulations, you are now ever so close to free insulin!! Insulin is a hormone secreted by groups of cells within the pancreas. The cells of our bodies use glucose as a source of energy for movement, growth, repair, and other functions. Now try mixing the candy cane syrup with the insulin, this will fuel your body with a rush of 10,000 horses on the eve of apocalypse, a rush that no amount of caffiene or cocaine could ever fulfill. Congratulations, if you’ve read this article, you now have all the info you need to abolish your cocaine dependency!! Unless of course you took my earlier post into consideration and are already on the crushed Candy Cane for your cocaine addiction. Congratulations!! You can now be a functioning member of society once more, with the energy of 1000 suns, and strength of 400 tractors!!
Hello Matt, I did as you mentioned, and awoke this morning to find that all of my finger-nails and eye lashes have fallen out…
Is this a common side effect?
Thanks Matt, I needed a good laugh! Candy canes (decent sized ones) are a pain in the neck to find round here, I only ever find the little tree decorating ones in boxes that are more often then not utter rubbish. :( Need to try harder this year!
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