Back with a FABULOUS recipe...Caramel Apples!

I'm back! It's now fall and the season for fresh crisp apples. What's better than homemade caramel apples? NOTHING!

So the reason I've disappeared is I've been at my local community college taking a culinary class called Basic Patisserie. Just as the name suggests, I've been learning, and practicing making basic pastries. Many new things I've learned that I will be sharing soon.

But first I was inspired to do make caramel apples since I first tried the ones at the California Disneyland. Caramel apples is perhaps the funnest and easiest thing to make. You can make them with virtually any topping you like and as many as you want if you're going for the ultimate toothache. From chocolate and marshmallows to gummy worms, nuts and more layers of candies and chocolate.

Of course, my favorite is an Apple Pie Apple, with white chocolate, brown sugar and cinamon and a little bit of graham cracker crumbs I have pictured here.


The caramel recipe I actually got from Food Network so I didn't make it up myself, BUT what the recipe doesn't tell you is all the secrets of what can go wrong and how to prevent it from all the mistakes I learned the hard way, having never made caramel before. None the less, here it goes:


2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

First, remove the stems from the apples and scrub them under warm water and dry them. I found these great bamboo skewers from an Asian market which I found was perfect because they looked like a pair of those training chopsticks for kids so it has a flat part to it that makes it super easy to hold when you eat. So use these skewers if you can find them (if not lollipop sticks work just fine, and can be found at a local supermarket or arts and craft store in the baking section) and skewer on top of the apple all the way to the middle and place on line a baking sheet with waxed paper, set aside.

Put the sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, and cream in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, swirling the pan but not stirring, until the mixture reaches 250 degrees F (firm ball stage) on a candy thermometer. Make sure the temperature does not go past 250 degrees or else it will turn into toffee and be too hard to eat after it cools!! Pull pan from the heat and stir in the butter. Tilt the saucepan and dip and spin each apple into the caramel, covering about 3/4 of the apple. Place on the prepared baking sheet until set.

If you choose to cover with chocolate directly over the caramel, let the caramel cool first so it doesn't mix with the chocolate. For about 8 apples, about a 12oz bag of white chocolate chips will be enough but you can also choose to do it with a block of white chocolate. Heat it over a double broiler but make sure the water is touching the bowl, otherwise the steam will burn the chocolate. Steam is much hotter than the water. After the apples are dipped in the chocolate, roll into a cinnamon sugar and graham cracker mixture so it will stick to the chocolate.

Let the chocolate set and they're ready for eating!