The gelt. The halva. The blue EVERYTHING.
It’s almost too much for me to handle.
ALMOST.
I can, in fact, handle it. I can handle it quite well. And so can you. It’s the perfect amount to handle.
In fact, that was the very idea behind this candy board: to make something we could all handle.
I mean, look at this thing. It’s a board…with candy on it. Some might even go so far as to call it a candy board. And there’s so little effort involved. Unlike some of my other Hanukkah projects, which do, admittedly, take a few hours (days? Weeks? YEARS OFF YOUR LIFE???) to pull off, this one comes together with barely any elbow grease.
Weird idiom, isn’t it? “Elbow grease.” Always gives me pause.
Another weird, if far lovelier idiom: “Gives me pause.”
As usual, I digress.
THE POINT IS, this here is a true no-bake dessert. You don’t have to turn on an oven or grease a pan or dirty up all your dishes to make it happen. I mean, if you prefer your candy at 350°…by all means, you do you. The rest of us are going to try to keep things at room temperature.
Below, I’ve included some shopping links in case you’d like to take this exact marble board for a spin, plus a few tips for keeping things uniform, pretty, and neat. Because, as you’re about to learn, what this recipe lacks in cook time, it more than makes up for in obsessive-arranging-and-rearranging time.
From my non-greasy elbows to yours, happy Hanukkah.
Rectangular Hanukkah Candy Board
What You’ll Need
- A flat, rectangular board—marble looks lovely because it’s white and provides a nice “blank canvas” on which to work, but any board works fine
- Blue and silver candies
- Extras: silver dreidels (please be careful with these if you have small children; mixing small edible and non-edible pieces is a choking hazard. These are really more for grown-up boards!)
What You’ll Do
These are really just tips and tricks; there’s no rhyme or reason to what I ended up doing! There’s no need to copy exactly what I did here. Get creative and plate/arrange your own candies as you see fit.
- Select a board. I know, I know—seems obvious enough. But you want to make sure that the board you pick has a nice flat surface, and no rounded edges (i.e. no dinner plates!). It’ll make it way easier to place the little piles of candies and make them look nice.
- Pick a color scheme and go candy shopping! I honestly think that picking out the candies that’ll go on your board is the most fun part of all of this, so just have fun and pick out what you think will work best. I thought the silver and blue together was such an elegant look, and slightly different from the usual golds and blues you see around this time of year, but really…anything goes. No rules here. Some links, if helpful: Swizzle sticks, silver gelt, blue M&Ms, and—my favorite on this board!—halva. I got everything else at a local candy store.
- Arrange and rearrange until you’re happy with how it all looks. Don’t be discouraged if it looks a little wonky at first. Rearranging is a totally expected part of the process. And it’s fun!
- Fill in the gaps with your silver dreidels. Unless you have small kids around, in which case—don’t do this! Mixing tiny edible and non-edible items is a choking hazard. But if that’s NOT the case, go right ahead and fill in any awkward “blank” spaces in your board with the silver dreidels! You could also throw in just about any other silver and blue trinkets you find around your house. The idea here is to make the board look even more lush and plentiful without having to purchase even more candy.
- That’s it! Take a few photos, share with friends, or use the board as a centerpiece for your holiday dinners this year.