A couple days ago, I got my breakfast ready and headed to the couch to catch up on some of my favorite guilty pleasure shows: Real Housewives of Orange County: Secrets Revealed; MasterChef; Hotel Hell; and America’s Next Top Model.
I typically watch these (with the exception of MasterChef) when no one is home because the judging and disapproving looks I get from my parents while Tamra talks to her robot baby and while Tyra insists everyone smize and tooch is just far too much for me to bear.
As I turned on my TV, I was greeted with the most dreaded message any TV viewer could see: No Signal. So after pressing the on & off button to reset the box no less than 3487 times, unplugging and plugging the machine, doing approximately 87.9 voodoo chants, praying to the TV gods, and calling AT&T, I was informed that our DVR thingie is broken.
BROKEN. BROKEN DAMMIT.
All the booty tooching and inane Tyraisms – gone. The MasterChef WINNERS (!!!) gone. Tamra’s weird sexual innuendos and Vicki’s crazy lumpy faces – gone. All gone. I felt like I’d lost a special part of my soul.
See, we’re a TV family and I’m a TV kiddo, born & raised. I spent the majority of my time playing with Barbies or running around outside, but for meals and everything else, I was plopped in front of the boobtube. As a result, I’m keen on TV trivia for particular shows, know schedules like the back of my hand, and am expert at navigating through channels and commercials like some kind of TV honcho.
So without my TV, I felt a little lost. Was it the end of the world? No. So no need to troll my comments with your sarcastic pity comments, thanks. I could always catch up on my books and magazines, clean the house, bake, blog, walk my dog – there’s a list of billions of other productive things I could do instead of fill my impressionable young adult head with toxic reality TV garbage. But did I want to do those other things? Hell to the nah. I’ll take watching Gordon Ramsay black-light spotty beds on Hotel Hell than change my own damn sheets.
The worst part of this entire fiasco? Having to break the news to my equally-addicted family, who surely would flip their little tushies over the fact that our beloved TV had done broke on us. I almost considered blasting Sarah McLaughlin’s “Arms of an Angel” and lighting candles so when they walked through the front door, they’d know something precious had died. Unfortunately, we don’t have any candles lying around and I couldn’t get the song without seeing puppies dying on YouTube, so I just figured I’d break it to them the hard way when they came home and realized the black box had lost its soul and had gone to heaven with other precious things, like Arrested Development and VCRs.
But then I also realized I had baked these Cotton Candy Magic Bars that very day, and so my night could happily be spent chowing down on bar after bar of these candy cornlicious treats. Winning.
So this begs the all-important question here: do you like candy corn? I, for one, love the stuff and eagerly anticipate its arrival every fall season. I love the different wacky flavors (this year I’ve spotted s’mores, pumpkin pie and caramel macchiato!) and I love eating it colored-section by colored-section, thanks to my OCD. Its sweet, kinda waxy vanilla & marshmallow-esque flavor is just quintessentially fall, and I could think of nothing more “fall-y” than these Candy Corn Magic Bars!
Loaded with — you guessed it — candy corn, these bars are only for the candy corn lovahs out there. Those who frown at this seasonal staple, ya may want to avert your eyes, because there’s a whole lotta candy corn lovin’ happening here. Candy corn bits, candy corn marshmallows, candy corn M&M’s and Hershey’s NEW Candy Corn White Chocolate all on top of a nice & chewy cake-base, then smothered in toasty sweetened condensed milk. Did I mention how much I love candy corn?
Almost as much as I love crappy reality TV. But at least one of these won’t die on me!
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 1 egg
- ½ cup oil
- 1 bag Hershey's Candy Corn White Chocolate Bars, broken into pieces
- 1 bag Candy Corn M&M's
- 2 cups candy corn marshmallows
- 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup candy corn
- Candy-corn colored sprinkles, optional
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 13x9" baking pan with foil, extending the sides of the foil over the edges of the pan. Grease the foil liberally with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, egg and oil with a rubber spatula until a soft dough has formed. Spread the dough evenly into the baking pan in an even layer and bake for 12 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and evenly top with the marshmallows first, then the chocolate bar pieces, M&M's and sweetened condensed milk only. Putting the marshmallows down first prevents them from browning too quickly, so when they're covered up with other ingredients, they'll still remain soft and gooey rather than burnt.
- Bake for another 18-20 minutes or until the top is golden and bubbly and the center appears just about set. Immediately sprinkle with the candy corn pieces and sprinkles; allow to cool to room temperature.
- Once at room temperature, allow the bars to set for another hour or two, preferably overnight. The longer it sets, the better it will set up and cleaner it will cut. Once you're ready to cut, run your knife through water through each cut to help get through the gooey marshmallows. Cut into squares and serve!
Words cannot accurately describe how much I love these bars! They are so irresistibly sticky and gooey, thanks to those lusciously light candy corn-flavored marshmallows, and have great crunch from the M&M’s and candy corn pieces on top! The reason the actual candy corn isn’t baked is because it tends to lose its consistency and harden up once baked, so sprinkling it onto the gooey, freshly baked layer as a last step helps it retain its shape, texture, and colors, and helps keep the bars pretty and edible! Don’t want you breaking a tooth now, do we? 🙂
*For reference… I purchased the candy corn M&M’s, candy corn marshmallows & Hershey’s candy corn chocolate bars at Walmart. I also found they were available at Target.*
Have a delicious day!
xo, Hayley
This fellow TV kid from a TV family feels your pain!!! eeep!
at least you had these gooey fall treats to get you through this tough time!
I hope your TV gets fixed soon! What a fun treat!
Hershey’s makes candy corn white chocolate?! I need to get some for my candy corn loving family!
I would DIE. Literally. We’d have a new DVR that day, even if I had to pay 6x what it costed and drive to Oregon to get it – and I only wish I was kidding. 🙂 Good luck!!!!
So much candy corn!! I love candy corn, but somehow I got stuck in a non-candycorn country. It’s horribly really – I can only drool over the pictures now!
Siv, I can’t even imagine such a place! Thanks for your comment – wishing you tons of candy corn in your future!
Be still my candy corn-loving heart!! I have been trying to at least wait until October, but I don’t know if I can make it!
Oh man dude I am sorry about the broken DVR. I know I lost internet connection for about 5 hours last weekend (while binge watching netlix no less) and I didn’t know what to do with myself! I ended up baking up some goodies, and man do I wish I had seen this recipe sooner! Pinning this for Halloween! 😀
Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine losing the internet! It’s happened before and it’s a NIGHTMARE! I thought the TV was bad – internet is way worse. Thank goodness you survived! 🙂
Dang! These sound awesome! I am not a huge candy corn fan but I did see those Hershey bars in the store and I was kinda dying to try them!
I saw the candy corn marshmallows at the store and bought them because I knew you’d have a good recipe for them!
This look AMAZING!