I love Haribo candies in all their forms: cherries, snakes and of course, the iconic Goldbears. I even visited the flagship store in Bonn, Germany (Fun fact: Bonn is also home to the Beethoven Museum, so you can easily combine a candy and classical music pilgrimage.)

Haribo gummies are arguably perfect as is, so I was surprised to learn that Food & Wine editor Hunter Lewis freezes his gummy bears (children) of their Halloween harvest. Part of the joy of eating a gummy bear comes from slippery chewingafter all. Wouldn’t they become a dentist’s nightmare if you froze them? But it turns out that something magical happens when you freeze this gelatin candy.

“Freezing gummy bears changes the texture and makes them more Jolly Rancher-esque for a brief moment,” says Lewis. “Plus, if like me you have no discipline and want to chew a handful quickly, freezing your gummies will force you to enjoy them for longer.”

Intrigued, I picked up a few bags of Haribo gummies (Goldbears, sour Goldbears and Starmix) to try at home and stored them in the freezer overnight. What I learned: Eating a candy is a treat, but eating a frozen gummi is an experience. As the hardened candy softens in your mouth, you experience tiny pockets of liquid that burst ever so slightly, almost like a Fruit Gusher. Maybe I was just eating them for longer, but the flavors also seemed more pronounced, as if they were technicolor versions of themselves.

A few notes: You can’t just put your bag of gummies in the freezer, or they will freeze into a gelatinous mass. Instead, place them on a plate or baking sheet, which you can then transfer to ziplock bags once frozen. This is called IQF, or individually frozen, and is a practice used by most food companies. (Notably, in my experience sour the gummy bears retained their texture in the bag thanks to the sugar coating.) Once your candy is frozen, don’t bite directly into it unless you want to lose a tooth; suck them like hard candy then let them soften in your mouth for the optimal chewing experience.

Best of all, your gummy bears will last longer this way. All gummies will eventually harden if stored at room temperature, but freezing them is a great way to control the texture so you can enjoy them well past Halloween.