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Aug 30, 2022

How to Make a Halloween Candy Dish

halloween candy dish filled with assorted hersheys candy

Pumpkins, check. Friendly ghosts, check. Fall candy dish filled with your favorite Hershey’s Halloween candy, double check! Halloween candy is the family’s favorite part of the season, and we’ve got a few ways you can turn your Halloween candy dish into a bewitching centerpiece. Whether you’re arranging the candy creatively or setting out an impressive spread of sweets, these DIY Halloween candy bowl ideas add just the right amount of whimsy and sweetly scary fun to invite your Halloween party guests to grab a treat.

Start with a Bowl: Ideas for a DIY Candy Dish

Choosing your container is the first step to making a frightfully fun candy dish. Your creativity has no limits, and now is the time to envision what you want your display to look like! If you’ve got a sturdy Halloween candy bowl already, we offer some new ideas to elevate its eerie appeal. Whatever you pick, it’s sure to be boo-tiful!

Pick Your Bowl

A round dish is always a solid choice, but a rectangular or square tray allows some additional creative freedom. Halloween shapes like ghosts, pumpkins, bats and coffins give your project a hauntingly good start. Whatever your aesthetic is, look for a bowl that isn’t too deep so you have more surface area to arrange your candy.

Choose the Right Colors

If you’ve got a white ceramic bowl with the ideal depth and shape for your display, you can spraypaint it black, orange, green or purple to add to the Halloween feel of your decorations. Or leave it white and lean into a ghost theme!

Give It Some Height

Levitate your treats above the countertop by adding a little height to your display. You can support your candy tray with candlesticks or hot glue two bowls together, bottom to bottom, for easy elevation.

Include a Sweet Surprise

Candy dish getting low on sweets? Customize your candy tray with a smiling pumpkin or a message: "No More Candy? BOOOO!"

assorted reeses candy inside ghost themed bowl

Make It 3D

Overflow the fun to the outside of the bowl to make a complete creation. You can add plastic skeleton hands to the outside to make it appear like they’re holding the dish or one haunted hand reaching inside. Glue eight spine-tingling spider legs around the outside and cross your fingers that your dish doesn’t creep away at night! Going with a witch theme? Add a wire handle to any bowl to transform it into a bubbling cauldron of candy.

halloween door hanger craft
CRAFTS
Halloween Candy Door Hanger

Welcome guests to treat town with this DIY Halloween candy door display sure to be a sweet surprise!

Arrange the Candy: How to Style a Candy Dish

You’ve got your bewitching bowl or terrifying tray. Now it’s time to fill it with an alluring array of Hershey’s Halloween candy favorites using the brightly colored wrappers as inspiration!

Pick a Pumpkin

You can’t help but smile when you see your candy smiling right back at you! This Pumpkin Candy Bowl uses a classic round bowl and creative use of colored wrappers to make a jack-o-lantern face. An assortment of REESE’S Halloween Candy is a must but fill in the eyes and mouth with your family’s favorite tiny treats.

Conjure a Witch's Hat

Arrange KIT KAT® Witch’s Brew Candy Bars in a classic pointy hat design for a well-rounded witch candy dish theme!

Shape a Skeleton

If you’ve chosen a well-sized rectangular tray, arrange KIT KAT® Breaking Bones Candy Bars into a skeleton shape using the candy bars as bones. Form the head using HERSHEY’S KISSES Candies, ideal for creating just about any shape!

Create a Candy Corn

Make a triangular candy corn shape using REESE’S Halloween Milk Chocolate Miniatures Peanut Butter Cups with an assortment of orange, black and purple foils.

assorted hersheys candy inside pumpkin bowl

Build a Haunted House

If you’re someone who loves making gingerbread houses during the holidays or a kid at heart who likes building blocks, try your hand at making a 3D Halloween Candy display! KIT KAT® Candy Bars, Hershey Halloween Miniatures and snack size bars like HERSHEY’S COOKIES ‘N’ CREME Fangs are stackable and would make a tasty, terrifying candy haunted house! Make a square structure, secure the candy with tape and add a black cardstock roof!

Take It Up a Notch: Make a Halloween Party Candy Tray

We got into the Halloween spirit and created this combination candy dish, dessert display and Halloween candy charcuterie board for the ultimate candy dish inspiration. This creation started with a coffin-shaped container, but you can use our ideas to make your own, like a cemetery scene or a pumpkin patch. There’s no wrong way to assemble an assortment of Halloween candy, shareable Halloween desserts and salty snacks, so let your imagination howl at the moon and run wild!

Bake Grab-and-Go Halloween Party Desserts

Party dessert tables are all about the treats that are single-portioned and easy to pick up and enjoy, like cupcakes and cookies. Ensure everyone has a hauntingly good time with Pumpkin Patch Brownie Cupcakes, with your choice of icing color and REESE’S Peanut Butter Pumpkin toppers decorated with googly eyes and squiggly royal icing. Offer a selection of Halloween shapes or change up the flavors with the on-theme REESE’S White Creme Peanut Butter Ghosts!

Arrange the Candy

You might have used candy to create your treats, but Hershey Halloween candy is so scary good that you’ll want to include even more. The key is to include both wrapped and unwrapped candy. Small bite-size treats like MILK DUDS Candy and WHOPPERS Malted Milk Balls make the perfect pop-able sweets. You can also leverage seasonal shapes, like YORK Peppermint Pattie Pumpkins, for a clever candy creation. For your wrapped candy additions, the choice is yours, and the only frightening part is deciding “witch” ones to pick!

Add Salty Snacks

Balance your spellbinding sweets with a selection of salty snacks like crunchy popcorn, flavorful baked cheese puffs or pretzel sticks.

reeses pumpkin patch brownie cupcakes recipe

Incorporate Fresh Options

Give your guests something sweet and juicy to enjoy alongside the crunchy options. Peeled tangerines make perfect little pumpkins topped with a small piece of celery as the stem. Blueberries and grapes are great, but they’re also eyeball-shaped for an eerie addition to your tray. Elevate classic chocolate covered strawberries with Halloween-colored creme or stick on a few googly eyes!

Add the Finishing Touches

Once you’ve got your treats tucked in all the right places, it’s time to add a final touch of wicked whimsy! Create these sweetly scary candy trees made with TWIZZLERS Twists Black Licorice Candy or line the edges to construct a fence made with JOLLY RANCHER Lollipops. Make mini-coffins using stackable KIT KAT® Candy Bars, fill them with HERSHEY’S KISSES and add a gravestone with an epitaph: “Here lies Lay Z. Bones."

Halloween Candy Tray FAQs