Classic Caramel Apples
Ok believe it or not I hate caramel. Or at least I thought I did. I have this vague memory of leaving somewhere, a birthday party maybe, with a giant goody bag of caramels. I’m pretty sure I ate them all… at once. Anyone else ever eaten 900,000 of something at the same time as a kid and avoided said food for the next 20 years or so?
So while were getting secretes out there I also better share… I don’t really like Halloween. I know I’m a total weirdo. Everyone loves Halloween. Except me. I guess it’s just that I’m a chicken. Ever since I was tiny Halloween, the monsters, skeletons, and other spookys actually freaked me out. And I don’t like being scared. So anyway I know I’m kinda odd, but it’s out there now.
So despite me lack of love for Halloween I don’t want to be a spoil sport for everyone else. Especially my oldest son who is very excited to be dressing up as Iron Man or a Fireman or Iron Man who fights fires or something like that. So these caramel apples are for my son (we made them together), and all you wild and crazy Halloween lovers out there.
I should definitely mention that in the course of browsing online for an easy way to make the caramel for the apples (I just wasn’t up for making caramel from scratch with my four year old.) I found a food blog I just had to add to Feedly for regular reading. The Pioneer Woman. Don’t be frightened off by the pioneer thing, this woman can cook!! I realized that when browsing recipes I end up landing on her site all the time. Anyhow I loved her idea of just using caramel melts for caramel apples rather then making caramel from scratch, which is not that hard, but sometimes you just want to make things easy, you know? So I ended up using Werther’s Chewy Caramels and melting them down, to great effect. And because I taste everything I post about, I discovered I apparently don’t hate caramel anymore. These are really really good! So gather your favorite toppings and get melting!
Classic Caramel Apples
Ingredients
- 11 oz Wether’s Original Chewy Caramels
- 1–2 tsp whole milk or heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp kosher or fine sea salt
- 5 apples
- Desired toppings, suggestions: pretzels, chocolate chips, m&m or recess’s pieces, marshmallows, peanuts
Instructions
- Prepare apples by washing well, and using grilling skewers, popsicle sticks or chopsticks, insert a stick into each apple. Prepare toppings ahead of time, either having them laid out on a piece of tin foil or in a bowl.
- In a double boiler over low heat melt down caramels, stirring regularly to prevent burning. Add milk, vanilla extract, and salt stirring well.
- Dip each apple into the caramel at least half way up, turning to coat all sides. Allow caramel to cool slightly and then roll in desired topping. Allow caramel to cool for a minute or two before setting on a plate. It also works well to place the finished apples in the fridge for a while to fully cool before serving.
- Repeat for all apples.