An Epicurious editor's recipe for Homemade Candy Corn looked like a lot of work, and the photo looked like it had been a brave messy effort, but the candies look a little off. Fussy kids might sniff, or just shovel 'em down -- this is a serious cook, so they probably taste great. But I passed.

Then I saw that food blogger Melisser of San Francisco (The Urban Housewife) has modified the recipe into Homemade Vegan Candy Corn.

She has craft skills, good photos illustrating every step and her notes after the recipe are terrific. They start,

They taste great, although slightly less sugary than the pre-packaged versions. I find that's the case with most artisan versions of standard junk food, but you'll still enjoy these very much & they'll quell your candy corn craving! I wouldn't add more sugar, as the dough will get too firm to work with. In fact, the dough is pretty firm in the first place & you may find your fingers hurting from kneading. When adding the food coloring, I found it best to keep folding the dough in to itself, then flattening it with my palm. Also, I didn't have gloves, so I kept a layer of plastic wrap over my dough as I was kneading it, which worked fine with minimal staining. The ropes of dough are VERY long, they took up the length of my dining table, so you can consider working in sections...

If you're an omnivore, you'll find the ingredients in the Epicurious recipe more familiar, but Melisser has the how-to.

Homemade candy corn still looks like a lot of work, but it could be fun to do with kids, who might want to sculpt flying-orange-dragon candy corn.