Christmas Candy Bar Train Craft to Make This Year

Make a Christmas Candy Bar Train! This fun holiday craft uses candy bars and other goodies to make a festive train. Easier than gingerbread houses, these trains can be part of your decor and a new tradition for your family to do together.

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Originally posted December 9, 2014. I’ve updated the post to include more detailed instructions to make following this tutorial easier.

Growing up, holidays were always pretty low-key but my mom always made sure that Christmas was full of super fun activities and traditions.

We made Candy Bar Trains every year. They’re a similar activity to making gingerbread houses, but way easier especially for little hands.

A few years ago I decided I wanted to share this candy train craft with my kids too. So I invited my mom over to help me make them with us. 

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How to make a Christmas Candy Train

While you can get super creative with your holiday candy train, my mom made hers the same year after year. She copied her instruction for me so I could recreate it.

It was also a really helpful guide for remembering how much of each type of candy you need.

And always keep in mind that the cute train in your head is not what your kids are going to make…And they will eat a LOT of candy.

Supplies

This list of supplies are what my mom has written on her instructions. But please use this as an idea and get whatever you prefer.

Candy to Buy for your “Chew Chew” Train, get it? 

• Large Snickers bars for the train cars (so 3 full-size Snickers bars for the full train I made)
• Fun Size Snickers bar for the front car
• 14 Peppermint candies for the wheels (note: the first car has 2 extra wheels – and they probably aren’t called wheels are they…)
• 1 gummy fruit slice for the corn catcher at the front of the train
• 4 Werther’s or several Lifesavers for the front of the train car
• 1 JUJU Bee for the light on the very front of the train
• 1 Gum Drop for just behind the smokestack
• 1 Lifesaver and 1 Rolo for the smokestack on the first train car
• 14 M&M’s for decoration on the wheels
• Several Tootsie Rolls for the log car.  The full size works best but you can also stack the Midgees if you can’t find the regular ones.
• White edible glitter flakes for snow

You can also use Thin licorice laces to connect the train cars. You’re supposed to use it to make train tracks but I am far too lazy for that! It does look cute though.

You would just lay long pieces just wider apart than the width of the candy train. Then cut licorice to make rungs and space them out about every inch. You can use royal icing to stick them down.

*A note about the candy. I linked to these on Amazon so you could see the exact candies I am talking about. You can find smaller bags of the items at CVS and they often have buy one get one 50% off deals.

Buying on Amazon is great if you are buying enough for a church group or big party, but CVS is great for buying supplies for making a handful of trains!

Other Items You’ll Need

Rectangle cake boards are great because you can build the train right on them, they are sturdy but they are also inexpensive and you can throw them away when done.

Royal Icing and a pastry bag and tips are really helpful. The royal icing is the “glue” that will let you stick the candy wherever it needs to be stuck.

You can also dab some on the plastic trees to make it look like snow.

If a pastry bag is too hard to manage or too overwhelming for you to use (my mom has cake decorating experience, me – not so much), you can also use small paintbrush or put it in a zip bag and cut a corner off.

Assorted Christmas themed plastic miniatures are the perfect way to make these trains feel ready for Christmas. If you can find vintage ones they are SO much cuter! Check for those on Etsy or Ebay.

I have noticed that craft stores are also starting to have a better selection of miniatures.

Tweezers might also come in handy if you want to be all type-a about it. I am not.

We did a little mock-up before gluing things together with the royal icing. In doing so, we learned that candy has changed a bit since we first made these like a hundred years ago.

Use the images in this post as a guide for how a train might look. But of course, do your own thing!

The first train car is really the most difficult. The rest are simple cars that you can add decorations to.

Directions

Make a batch of royal icing and put it in a piping bag with a basic tip or use one of the other methods I mentioned above.

Unwrap the candies and place them near your work area which includes a cake board.

Start with a full-sized candy bar and add peppermint wheels with royal icing.

Choose which side you want to be the front of the car then add 2 peppermint candies on each side in the front of the car and one on each side near the back of the car (and when I say car I mean candy bar).

Just use a small dot of icing as when you press the candies to stick, the excess will ooze out the sides.

Add a fun-sized candy bar to the back of the train.

Add a gummy fruit slice to the very front.

Add 4 Werther's hard caramels, sideways, starting from the fun-sized candy bar. You could use Lifesavers to equal roughly the same size instead. (I just had a hard time finding Lifesavers the day we shot this).

Add a Lifesaver and Rolo to make the smokestack.

A single Juju Bee is the light to lead the way.

And a Gum Drop goes just behind the smokestack.

A miniature Santa Clause finishes off the first car perfectly.

Miniatures really add such a fun touch. Be sure to see some bunnies with wine in my panoramic sugar eggs.

For the second car (and any after), use another full-sized candy bar as the base.

Add the wheels (any car besides the first car just get two wheels on each side) and then get creative! A small plastic tree looks super cute!

Some colorful licorice, cut into small ropes, is the perfect way to link the cars.

You can also use the licorice running from the first wheel to the last wheel of the car to make it look more train-like. I deemed it unnecessary for ours.

For the final car, my mom always added "logs". Some edible snow and miniatures give it the perfect finishing touch.

And don't forget to add an M&M to each wheel!

I think this will be a tradition that we do with our kids every year. It's a fun one to share with other families as well.

When times allow, you could do this as a fun holiday party idea.

I had only bought 6 of the large candy bars but the candy used to decorate was very plentiful. We could have made a ton of train cars by just picking up a few more full-sized Snickers bars.

Like gingerbread houses, these are edible, but since all of the candy has been manhandled I wouldn't recommend eating them.

My kids asked so incessantly that I finally said they could eat the candy train cars they made.

Turns out all the different flavors of candy don't taste that great together. So they stopped eating them instead of picking the candy off individually...dummies.

(Yes I just called my kids dummies. But as a joke. That is kind of ironic. Especially since my 3rd grader had to go ask his teacher how to do one of his homework math problems since I couldn't figure it out...)

My son was almost 6 when we made these the first time and it was really easy for him. A paintbrush worked really well for him to use the royal icing.

We ended up having a last-minute playdate after school the day we made these so my older son and his friend decided to make them too. Turns out, with a little imagination, your "train" can also be made as a sports car.

If you make one be sure share it with me on Instagram!!!! Tag me at @cupcakescutlery and use the #cupcakesandcandytrains

More Holiday Fun

• Make a Faux Croquembouche Donut Hole Tree for holiday breakfast or dessert!
• A Cinnamon Toast Bar for Brunch is a sweet way to start the day. It's a great way to keep everyone from getting too hungry as they wait for brunch.
• Homemade Woven Christmas Ornaments are another fun activity but they also can double as gifts for the family!
• Getting ready for New Year's Eve? Make these Hourly Countdown Bags for the kids to open!

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