Retro Treats Remember When Our Halloween Treats Were Homemade? We Looked Back At An Old Favorite

Anyone can buy a bag of Halloween candy.

But I had a hankering for old-fashioned treats - the kind grandma used to make before people worried about eating homemade stuff that some modern-day monsters might have spiked with razor blades.

Those nostalgic goodies were the main draw at many a Halloween party when I was growing up. Other kids got soaking wet bobbing for apples while I coveted the fruit covered in caramel. Or, the creamy fudge. Oh, and that get-stuck-in-your-fillings peanut brittle.

This year I decided to introduce my daughter to the pleasures of sweets made the old-fashioned way. Not simply satisfied with the possibility of converting one candy bar addict, I enlisted the help of Claire’s class in helping to make popcorn balls.

Not that I had ever attempted this old recipe I unearthed in The Spokesman-Review’s Dorothy Dean files. (For those who aren’t familiar with Ms. Dean, she was the newspaper’s version of Betty Crocker, a fictitious “homemaker” who cooked up weekly menus for readers.)

So, how hard could it be? You pop some corn, make some simple syrup and you’re good to go, right?

Well, I started to get a little nervous after buying my ingredients. There was an offer on the back of the bag of Jolly Time for a popcorn ball maker. “No more burned fingers!” it promised.

I hadn’t really considered the dangers of inviting a group of third- and fourth-graders to shape this hot stuff into a ball.

My neighbor, Nell - a popcorn ball veteran who used to make at least 100 of the things each year when her kids were young — gave me a lecture when I asked to borrow her candy thermometer.

“You’re not going to let kids around this, are you? It’s about 300 degrees,” she warned.

Nell no longer owned a candy thermometer, but she lent me her old roaster pan, a deep-sided container she told me to use to keep the popcorn warm in the oven. That’s one of the keys to successfully sculpting popcorn balls.

At school, I started cooking the mixture of sugar, water and a little vinegar. But the recipe didn’t say how long it would take until the mixture reached “hard ball” stage. Heck, I didn’t even really know what hard ball stage was.

I kept testing it by dropping some in cold water. When it’s ready, it’s supposed to form a hard ball.

Twenty five minutes of cooking later and still nothing.

I was just about to tell the class that there would be a change in plans and we were going to make Cracker Jack instead. But a couple more mothers arrived to help out. Talk about perfect timing. One of them knew how to play hard ball. (It’s when it slowly drips off the spoon, looking like a big fat raindrop.)

When the mixture was done, I pulled it off the burner and added food coloring and vanilla. Then, I carefully poured the syrup over the warm popcorn, warning the kids to be careful when they touched it because it was hotter than the surface of the sun.

The recipe recommended buttering your hands, so the mixture won’t stick. But we sprayed everyone’s palms with canola oil in a can, which made them squeal: “Eewww, gross, disgusting.”

I had brought old-fashioned adornments for these edible works of art: jelly beans, black licorice, candy corn. They loved the candy corn and the jelly beans, especially the Dr. Pepper-flavored ones. But the licorice was roundly shunned.

As the mixture cooled off, forming the popcorn balls became a bit more challenging. We figured out the best way to help them hold their shape was to really squeeze, to pack them down like they were a snowball.

It wasn’t a perfect process. But those popcorn balls looked great and tasted even better. And nobody burned their fingers.

After we finished, I took a vote on whether these trick-or-treaters would choose a candy bar or a popcorn ball and the results were a lot closer than I would have guessed. Ten chose the hand-formed, colorfully decorated sweets, while 12 hung steady with Three Musketeers and the like.

I had a few extra, so when I returned the roaster pan to my neighbor Nell, I gave her one and asked what she thought.

“One of these days, I’m going to show you the right way to make popcorn balls,” she promised.

Here are Dorothy Dean recipes for popcorn balls and a few other goodies for your old-fashioned Halloween celebration.

Spiced Apple Cider

6 cups apple cider

1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon powdered cloves

1/2 cup brown sugar

Stick cinnamon or 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

Heat cider with spices and sugar over low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring to dissolve sugar. Serve hot in mugs with cinnamon stirrers. Or add grated lemon rind; chill, then serve.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Nutrition information per each of 6 servings: 82 calories, less than 1 gram fat (1 percent fat calories), less than 1 gram protein, 21 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 56 milligrams sodium.

Popcorn Balls

5 quarts popped corn

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1-1/2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Orange food coloring, optional

Keep popcorn hot and crisp in 300-degree oven. Combine sugar, corn syrup, water, salt and vinegar in heavy saucepan. Cook to hard-ball stage, 260 degrees, or until mixture is slightly brittle when dropped into cold water. Remove from heat; add vanilla plus orange food coloring, if desired. Slowly pour syrup over hot popcorn, mixing to coat every kernel. Grease hands with butter; quickly mold popcorn mixture into 3-inch balls.

To make Jack O’Lanterns: Press skewers in warm popcorn balls for handles. Gently press black gumdrops for “eyes,” “nose,” and “mouth” on each popcorn ball. Wrap in saran or cellophane; twist tightly at “neck.” Snip a hole in center of 6-inch doily; slip skewer through hole. Gather up doily and tie in place with orange and black ribbon.

Yield: 12 balls.

Nutrition information per ball: 220 calories, 1 gram fat (4 percent fat calories), 2 grams protein, 54 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, 2 grams dietary fiber, 114 milligrams sodium.

Nuts and Bolts

1/2 cup butter

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon celery salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

2 cups Wheat Chex

2 cups Rice Chex

2 cups pretzel sticks

1 can salted peanuts

1 can salted mixed nuts

Melt butter in shallow pan; stir in seasonings. Add remaining ingredients; toss until all pieces are coated with butter mixture. Bake at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Spread out to cool. Pack in covered containers or plastic bags.

Yield: About 3 quarts.

Nutrition information per 2-cup serving: 423 calories, 29 grams fat (62 percent fat calories), 11 grams protein, 34 grams carbohydrate, 21 milligrams cholesterol, 5 grams dietary fiber, 900 milligrams sodium.

Caramel Candied Apples

6 medium-size apples

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 (15-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Insert skewers in stem ends of washed and thoroughly dried apples. Combine sugar, corn syrup, milk and salt in medium saucepan. Stir until sugar is completely blended. Cook slowly, stirring, to soft ball stage, 230 degrees; this takes about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla; cool slightly. Working quickly, dip apples in caramel, twirling until well coated. Place apples, stem up, on buttered plate to harden.

Yield: 6 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 517 calories, 7 grams fat (12 percent fat calories), 6 grams protein, 114 grams carbohydrate, 24 milligrams cholesterol, 4 grams dietary fiber, 172 milligrams sodium.