[ot-caption title=”We reviewed the best and the worst seasonal Halloween candy. Via Dan Goodman, AP Images” url=”https://pcpawprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/AP070930042489.jpg”]

Living in a state with very minimal seasonal differences and an abundance of perennially green palms, the only true indication of the beginning of fall is the arrival of the great Pumpkin Extravaganza. Led by the return of Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL in early September, the parade of autumn-themed food and drink continues until late November, when the pumpkins morph into peppermints and packaging denotes falling snow, not falling leaves. In celebration of Halloween and all things pumpkin, my friends and I decided to try out all the specially marketed pumpkin candies and more available at my friendly neighborhood Target. These are the results.

Toll House Pumpkin Spice Morsels

These look like orange chocolate chips, and are most likely some form of white chocolate with pumpkin and cinnamon flavoring added to them. They mostly tasted like cinnamon, though. We felt weird about eating these solo, so we decided to bake them into snicker doodle cookies. The cinnamon flavor of the cookies perfectly complimented the pumpkin chips, creating a soft and gooey sugar cookie perfect for cozying up next to the fireplace I don’t have. Every snicker doodle should be made with these, honestly.

Pumpkin Spice M&M’s

Being a huge fan of pretty much every variation of M&M’s, I had high hopes for these. The M&M’s inside the festive orange packaging were all aptly colored orange, brown, or green, and seemed bigger and more round than normal M&M’s. This visual cue led me to expect a spicy pumpkin inside, considering the peanut butter M&M’s are always filled with peanut butter and the pretzel ones are completely rounded to house a little pretzel inside. However, when I bit into it, the center was all chocolate. Maybe there was a little artificial pumpkin spice flavoring infused in the chocolate, but mostly these just tasted like regular M&M’s.

Pumpkin Spice Hershey’s Kisses

Perfectly wrapped in shiny copper foil with a tiny banner seemingly cheering for the pumpkin spice inside, these seemed like magnified versions of the Pumpkin Spice Morsels we had already tried. On the outside, they had the same cinnamon-sweet, white-chocolate, orange-tinted coloring for the holiday. On the inside, much like how caramel Kisses are filled, was a white cinnamon cream that made the pumpkin spice taste even better. These were surprisingly good, especially considering I usually prefer chocolate of the dark variety; however they were so sweet that more than two was just too many. These were probably the best pumpkin candy adaptation of the night.

Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis

I know these aren’t explicitly pumpkin flavor, but the fall leaves on the bag and promise of apples forced me to imagine non-existent memories of apple picking and rolling around in the decaying foliage, so I had to try them. These are actually pretty weird, and actually did remind me of a caramel apple. However, this was mostly because of the rapidity with which I got sick of them. These look like regular Milky Way’s, and are pretty much the same except for a faint apple cinnamon taste in the nougat. Maybe the caramel was a bit sweeter than usual also. The candy tasted too artificial to eat more than one mini. Another let down.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins

While not pumpkin flavored, these Halloween classics serve as a reminder that forcing fall spices on everything edible isn’t always the soundest route. Peanut Butter Pumpkins are basically just regular Reese’s cups, but shaped like pumpkins. The spooky shape makes something about the usually ideal ratio of chocolate to peanut butter even better. These were undoubtedly the biggest hit with the crowd, as we nodded our heads to their timeless versatility while drinking pumpkin spice tea and burning pumpkin and cinnamon candles. Oh well, I guess the basic never learn.