Note-to-Self: Caramel Apple Adventure

Happy Halloween! So this is by far my favorite holiday to celebrate all year...spooky front porch decorations, making fall wreaths, decorating the mantel, carving pumpkins, baking pumpkin seeds, costume craziness, candy, and of course Caramel Apples! There are so many things to do around this fall holiday that I thought I would take my first turn at making Caramel Apples - how hard could this be?

To start out, I actually was able to pick up a kit from Keopsels Farm in Baileys Harbor, WI on my last trip in August. This kit looked like a lot of fun, and very tasty too!

Keopsels Caramel Apple Kit

Next, I was able to set out all of my items that I would be using to construct these apples. In the picture below there are my 6 small to medium green apples, wooden sticks, fluted wax paper cups, chopped peanuts, caramel, and a small hammer.

Keopsels Kit items

Why use Green Apples? Green apples (or Granny Smith Apples) hold up better than any other apple because of its firm skin and crisp interior - these apples will not mush on you!

My first task was to get all of the wooden sticks into the green apples. By using a small hammer, I was able to tap lightly on the end of the sticks (which were tapered at one end) to go nicely into the apples. Turn the apples upside down so that the bottom is facing up towards you.

Green Apples with wooden sticks inserted.

Note-to-Self: Caramel is not your friend! So... the instructions stated to put the container of caramel into the microwave for 1 minute, stir, then another 30 seconds. When I took the caramel out of the microwave I had about one nanosecond to put some caramel onto the first apple before it started to harden! Yuck! I would definitely suggest a double-boiler situation here where you would have a low heat on the caramel to get a nice thin smooth consistency while applying all apples with the caramel. I ended up trying to reheat the caramel for each apple to get a thin covering. This did work, but for future caramel apples, I will for sure do a double-boiler. After getting the caramel onto the apples, then press the apple into the crushed peanuts. I put the crushed peanuts into a smaller bowl so that they were easily managed.

Caramel dipping station.

This was a fun fall project and I was really happy that I learned some new "tricks" for the trade. Below is the final product! Happy Halloween - have a spooky day!

Yummy apples!

Beautiful fall treat!