I was a little nervous after my flamin’ hot Cheetoh experience with last year’s candy corn, but I have to admit it came out quite well this time around. I love this recipe.

The other Halloween craft was better in theory than execution, but still fun — and calorie-free. We sprayed pumpkins with chalkboard paint and gave them to second graders, along with chalk. Turns out, the smaller pumpkins are harder to work with, and second graders really have no idea what a chalkboard is.

So I’ll just show you the blank slates.

Sophie will be Olivia the Pig for Halloween this year (“of course!” she says if you ask) and I broke my Halloween rule and let Annabelle switch from Autumn to Harriet the Spy (she begged and Harriet’s my favorite), so we’ll spend the weekend trying to recreate Harriet’s spy belt. Poor Annabelle — that navy blue hoodie will get awfully hot; it’s 90 today but expected to dip below the mid-80s by Sunday.

But a girl’s got to be a slave to her vision. I get it.

Have a happy and safe Halloween, everyone!

As you might recall, the first time I tried to make candy corn, Annabelle remarked that it looked like I was making Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

Not this time. I nailed it, if I do say so myself. And it wasn’t the salted butter — the recipe I tried this time actually called for it. It’s easy! No candy thermometer, no mixer. Just don’t stir vigorously when it tells you to stir occasionally; I think that was the first batch’s downfall.

In fact, I think I’ll try another batch for this weekend’s festivities. (I’m cocky now, which can’t be a good thing….)

One problem with that homemade candy corn is that it’s got to have a day’s allotment of calories per piece — I’d call each piece a serving; mine turned out rather large, about the equivalent of four or 5 pieces of store bought candy corn. And these have butter in them.

So I recommend balancing the homemade candy corn with my mom’s creative recipe for candy corn parfaits, which she made for my birthday. She took vanilla sugar free/fat free pudding and made it according to the recipe on the box — but added a little rum extract to cut the taste of the artificial sweetener. Then she added food coloring to make half the pudding orange and half yellow (pale versions). Swirl that in the bottom of the cup and top with lite Cool Whip.

I’d say that recipe kicks Hungry Girls’ little butt.

My mom topped her parfaits with a Reeses piece, but I suspect that’s only because she’s afraid to keep real candy corn in the house (which would have looked cute as a topper) for fear she’d eat the entire bag in the middle of the night. I know I would.

I am a believer in “third time’s a charm,” which is why I am not calling it quits on homemade candy corn. Yet.

Last Friday I took a second pass at challah (braided egg bread). It looked better than the first attempt, which I burned, but was painfully dry> Hhow could I manage to make bread that tasted stale the very same day I baked it? I must have a special gift.

Then came the candy corn.

Since first deciding to attempt it (How cute! I can give it to all the teachers and therapists for Halloween! And just think of the possibilities for Christmas/Chanukah!) I actually discovered a book called “The Field Guide to Candy” – which includes the history of just about every kind of candy you can think of, along with recipes to make it.

I don’t have permission to give you the candy corn recipe, but I found it on the site of the sadly soon-to-be defunct magazine Cookie, so here you go.

But be warned. The first time was a disaster.

I didn’t think that using salted butter instead of unsalted would be such a big deal. (I simply omitted the quarter teaspoon of salt called for in the recipe.) But I do suspect that stirring continually for five minutes when I was supposed to stir occasionally might have the problem.

In any case, Annabelle came into the kitchen as I was trying to make the orange dough and remarked (not unkindly), “Hey, that looks like Flamin’ Hot Cheetoh dough, Mommy!”

I cracked up. She was right, of course; that observation made the whole endeavor worthwhile. The stuff didn’t taste bad, it just looked awful. And when you see recipe, which includes the photo of what it’s supposed to look like, then you’ll really crack up.

I’ll keep you posted on the second (and, I’m guessing, third) attempt. For now, here’s the bowl containing the first (which I threw in the garbage this morning):