Best Candy Corn, According to a Taste Test

Candy corn gets a lot of grief. Do I personally love it? No. But if you’re reading this ranking, I am going to assume you do. If you were of the opinion that candy corn is trash—waxy, overly sweet, only edible once a year and only if there’s nothing else sweet around—you probably wouldn’t care which candy corn is the best candy corn. Right? Right. This is a candy corn safe space. I tasted a bunch of candy corn for this taste test (because I love and respect you) and will now reveal the best tasting candy corn you can buy. Just don’t give it to trick-or-treaters unless you want to get egged.

Best Variation

Favorite Day Candy Corn Crunch

Target

Favorite Day went and did something crazy with candy corn, and I gotta say, it’s just crazy enough to work. Their Candy Corn Crunch is a white chocolate bark that’s dotted with full pieces of candy corn and halved, roasted peanuts. White chocolate is extremely sweet. Candy corn is extremely sweet. I gotta say, I don’t think this would have worked without the peanuts, which have an almost savory flavor that tempers all that sugar. This feels like a snack an insane Midwestern aunt made and I like it. The candy corn kernels may not have been made by the best tasting candy corn brand (we’ll get to that in a sec), but this is the best candy corn creation.

Credit: Merc / Target

Rating:

7.5/10

Sporks

Best Flavors

Brach’s Fall Festival Candy Corn

Walmart

Every year, iconic candy corn brand Brach’s comes out with some novelty flavor assortments like Tailgate (complete with hot dog flavored candy corn) or Funfetti candy corn, and this season’s is pretty fun. The flavor lineup in the Fall Festival bag: kettle corn, caramel apple, cotton candy, lemonade, strawberry funnel cake, and lemon-lime snowcone. A lot of these don’t exactly scream fall (and having two citrus flavors is overkill), but you gotta love the meta nature of kettle corn-flavored candy corn, right? This is the best candy corn if you are a candy corn fan (which we’ve established you are) looking to mix things up a little.

Credit: Merc / Walmart

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

Best of the Best

Brach’s Classic Candy Corn

Target

Prior to this taste test, I’d definitely assumed that all candy corn came from a single candy corn factory somewhere in the Rustbelt (and potentially sometime in the 1930s) and was simply packaged by different brands. Nope. Brach’s is by far the best tasting candy corn brand. It has the correct texture. It has that interesting, almost buttery flavor that you remember from childhood. Brach’s also sells those little pumpkins made out of the same substance as candy corn, but they’re just too big. Brach’s candy corn is small and cute and even though it’s obnoxiously sweet, you can eat a lot of it because the kernels are just so satisfying. No big revelations here I suppose, but this is the best candy corn.

Credit: Merc / Target

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Other products we tried: Brach’s Mallowcreme Pumpkins, Brach’s Autumn Mix, Jelly Belly Candy Corn, Zachary Candy Corn

About the Author

Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks. Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction. Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home. Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.