Bang on Butterfinger Bites

  If I were to tell you I have a recipe for Butterfinger candy bars would you believe me? You've probably seen a lot of copycat recipes out there for everything from Outback Steakhouse's Bloomin' Onion to Cracker Barrel's Cheesy Hashbrown Casserole. But a recipe for a candy bar? And what if I told you this recipe has only three ingredients? 
  Well, you can believe it! I've seen this recipe on Pinterest. Many of the Pinterest versions are fully covered in chocolate and look more like the traditional candy bar. I am not a big fan of chocolate (gasp!) and I could just not bring myself to cover the whole thing. It is amazing how bang on close these taste to the real thing. And what was really surprising to me was how close the texture is to a real Butterfinger candy bar. 
  I'll show you how I made them:

The three ingredients are candy corn, peanut butter, and chocolate candy coating. That's it! Candy corn is readily available in the fall, but I was able to find it even this time of year in the Brach's candy section of my large grocery store. Oddly enough, candy corn is often sold in big home improvement stores like Menard's and farm supply stores like Quality Farm and Fleet...I wonder if candy corn is a favorite of handymen and farmers?

I put one pound of candy corn in a glass bowl and put it in the microwave to melt. I started it by cooking it for one minute, stirring, and then setting it to cook for 20 seconds, and stirring until the candy corn was completely melted.

Then I stirred in 16 ounces of creamy peanut butter. I stirred and stirred, and stirred some more. I thought my arm was going to break before I got the mixture fully combined. I ended up putting it back in the microwave and warming it again for 20 seconds to try to "loosen" it up. In the picture I am using a rubber spatula. I had to change that to a heavy metal spoon because the mixture was so stiff. 

I kept mixing and stirring until both ingredients were fully combined.

I put the mixture into an 8"x8" parchment lined pan and then put it in the refrigerator to cool. 

 When it was cool I took it out of the pan and cut it into pieces. I wasn't sure if I wanted large candy bar-size pieces or smaller pieces. Imagine cutting up the inside part of a Butterfinger candy bar. It wants to crumble. I tasted a nibble and decided it was really rich (like a candy bar ~ duh!) so I decided to make smaller chunks. 

 At that point I warmed the candy coating in the microwave according to the package instructions. I planned to dip the candy pieces in the chocolate and letting the chocolate set on a piece of wax paper, but I decided instead to just drizzle the chocolate over the tops. I'm glad I did. The orange and brown color looks more like a fall treat, but they tasted like something the Easter Bunny would be happy to deliver!


What was the taste tester's bottom line?
My testers today were my son, Nathan, and his son, Charlie. 

Their big smiles and thumbs-up is the result I look for in a good recipe.

The bottom line: This one's a keeper!