Food Network Magazine - (10)October 2020

normally get along with my kids’

teachers, but a few years back one

of them tried to kill my candy-melt

dreams: I was supposed to bring treats

to school for my daughter’s birthday and

I asked for the class list so I could write

all the kids’ names in candy melts and

use them as cupcake toppers. (You can

melt down the colorful disks and pipe

them into pretty much any design.) The

teacher rejected my plan outright, saying

it would take too much time to pass out

personalized desserts, so I revolted

by drawing the school logo in candy

melts instead. I figured he’d witness my

handiwork and regret his decision about

the names, but the joke was on me: The

cafeteria was about 100 degrees and

every one of my toppers slumped over

and melted into the frosting.

It was what you’d call a teaching

moment: I learned the limitations of

my favorite decorating product (heat

is deadly), and I learned to save my

overblown baking projects for family

and friends. I recovered from the

cupcake incident by using

every birthday cake I’ve

made since (see exhibits

A, B and C below).

If you haven’t messed

around with candy melts

yourself, you should give

some quick, fun projects on page 50 as

part of our special Instagram section.

You’ll discover when you work with

them that candy melts aren’t the world’s

finest-tasting confections—they’re overly

sweet disks of fake white chocolate,

artificially flavored and very artificially

colored, but whatever. They are bright,

cheerful and endlessly entertaining, and

in a year like the one we’ve had so far,

that’s pretty much all we need.

Maile Carpenter

Editor in Chief

@maile__fnmag

Ƙɿ̱Ƙ̙̱

These are three of

the many cakes

I’ve decorated with

candy melts. I might

need a new party

trick soon!

10 FOOD NETWORK MAGAZINE ●OCTOBER 2020

CANDY MELTS: MIKE GARTEN. CARPENTER: TRAVIS HUGGETT.

editor’s letter

I

candy melts on pretty much

them a try: We came up with