You could eat all that Halloween candy — or you could cook with it

In all good conscience, I cannot really recommend that anyone try the recipes in this story.

They may sound delicious — and believe me, they are — but they are the kind of food that a person could happily go his entire life without eating.

I’m talking about dishes made with leftover Halloween candy.

Any normal person takes candy that was not distributed to neighborhood ghosts and goblins and Kardashians and furtively devours it right out of the bag in the day or two after Halloween. But some people, those blessed with a specific kind of inspiration, look at the candy in its wrappers and see a blank culinary canvas.

“Snickers bars just don’t have enough calories on their own,” I imagine them saying. “How can I make them even more fattening?”

The answer, I am heartily sorry to say, is to add Cool Whip. And cream cheese. And powdered sugar.

Mix it all together, add chopped Granny Smith apples for tartness, and you have what is laughingly called a Snickers salad.

It’s good for you because it is a salad, right?

Besides, it’s got those apples.

How does it taste? It tastes great. Of course it tastes great.

It is totally evil and it was probably invented by some kind of evil genius, and anything so evil is almost certain to taste great.

Snickers Salad

Yield: 10 servings

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

12 ounces frozen whipped topping, such as Cool Whip, thawed

1 (11.18 ounce bag) fun-size Snickers bars, about 19

2 Granny Smith apples

1. Using an electric mixer, mix cream cheese and powdered sugar until thoroughly blended. Fold in thawed whipped topping. Cut Snickers bars into bite-size chunks and add to mixture. Chop the apples into bite-size chunks; stir into mixture.

2. Chill at least 1 hour before serving. Chilling several hours, such as overnight, will lead to some liquid separating from the salad.

Per serving: 399 calories; 21g fat; 14g saturated fat; 28mg cholesterol; 4g protein; 47g carbohydrate; 36g sugar; 2g fiber; 133mg sodium; 55mg calcium.

Adapted from a recipe by food.com

•••

But I was just getting started. I wanted more. Something even more decadent.

And thus it was that I was skating across the Internet when I ran smack dab into Milky Way vodka.

There it was: Something more decadent than a Snickers salad.

Milky Way vodka is what happens when you melt a bunch of Milky Ways and add them to vodka.

The process is a little bit time consuming, but the whole thing, start to finish, only took me about a half-hour. And when it was over I had a bottle of Milky Way vodka.

Melting Milky Way bars is a little trickier than it sounds. You need to chop them up for speedier melting, and then stir them in a double boiler until they are thoroughly melted. They don’t turn into a liquid when they melt, they are stringy and sticky instead, but don’t worry.

They liquefy with the addition of the vodka.

If that process is too much trouble, there is an easier way. Slice the Milky Way bars thin enough to fit in the neck of a bottle, and put them in a bottle of vodka. Tightly close the bottle and then run it through the dishwasher.

Seriously. The dishwasher cycle is hot enough to melt the candy bars in the bottle. Well, you may have to run it through twice. But it works.

And again, when it is over you have a bottle of Milky Way vodka. A clean bottle.

Milky Way Vodka

Yield: About 13 (2-ounce) servings

1 (750ml) bottle vodka

½ (11-ounce) bag fun-size Milky Way bars, about 10, or 5 regular size bars

1. Pour out about 20 percent of the vodka from the bottle and save for future use. Slice the fun-size candy bars in half or cut up the regular-size bars into several pieces. Put a double boiler on to simmer, or create your own by placing a glass or metal bowl over the water, but not touching it.

2. Add the candy to the double boiler and stir. As the candy is melting, stir in a little bit of the vodka at a time. Keep mixing until everything becomes a smooth blend.

3. Pour the mixture back into the bottle and store in the freezer. The vodka will not freeze.

Alternatively,

1. Pour out about 25 percent of the vodka from the bottle and save for future use. Cut up the candy bars until they can fit into the neck of the bottle. Add the candy to the bottle of vodka. Seal tightly.

2. Run the bottle through the dishwasher cycle. When done, shake the bottle to combine. If necessary, run the bottle through the cycle again.

3. Store in the freezer. The vodka will not freeze.

Per serving: 154 calories; 2g fat; 1g saturated fat; 1mg cholesterol; no protein; 9g carbohydrate; 7g sugar; no fiber; 20mg sodium; 12mg calcium.

Recipe adapted from wikihow.com