Caramel & Chocolate Covered Apples!

CARAMEL & CHOCOLATE COVERED APPLES!



I made caramel-chocolate covered apples a few weeks ago, and since I couldn't find too much information about dipping them in chocolate (plenty of caramel-dipping advice!) I decided to post how I made these apples.


Prep time: About 1 hour - 1 1/2 hours
Total time: About 7-8 hours
I ended up making 5 large apples and 4 small apples, so those are the proportions I will use.
You will need:
1. Large, firm, pretty, apples. Good varieties are the ones that are on the tart side. I used Granny Smith.
2. Caramel. You can make your own caramel or cheat and buy a 14 oz. bag of wrapped caramels.
3. Sticks for the candy apple handle. I used popsicle sticks. Smooth chopsticks would work well too.
4. Chocolates. I used about 10 oz. of a bag of Hershey's dark chocolate chips and a few ozs. of vanilla (white) chocolate bars for drizzling.
5. Toppings! Peanuts, Butterfingers, M&M's, toffee, sprinkles, coconut, slivered almonds, crushed pretzels, oreos, etc.


To make:
1. Wash apples with hot water and scrub to help remove any wax. Dry thoroughly and put in freezer for about 20 minutes or the fridge for a few hours to get cool so the caramel coating will stick easier.
2. Remove stems and insert sticks into top centers of apples.
3. Chop toppings and place on plates for decorating.

4. Place parchment paper (supposedly doesn't stick as much as wax) on cookie sheets (enough to hold all your apples) and set aside.
5. Unwrap or make caramel.
6. Heat and melt caramel in medium sauce-pan, microwave, or double boiler. I used the microwave - I simply turned it in full power for about 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between the 30 seconds for about 2 minutes total. For 14 oz. of caramels, I gradually added about 2 Tbs. of milk to help thin the caramel. Too little, and it is hard to stir/coat. Too much, and the caramel does not go on thick enough. (I made the mistake of adding more than the recommended 2 Tbs. and the caramel became too thin - oh well!)
7. Once caramel has been heated so that it is smooth to stir, dip the apples one at a time in the bowl of caramel goodness. Tilt the bowl or use a spoon once the caramel level starts to drop.

*Photo courtesy of pwcooks.com

The above photo is only half done - make sure and coat them all the way to the top, where the stick meets the apple.
8. Place each apple on the parchment paper when you are done dipping it.

9. Once all the apples are coated and on the cookie sheets, place them in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. Now the caramel has cooled some, so I went ahead and transferred the apples to new sheets of paper so that I would not have the caramel ring on the bottom of the apples. You could theoretically scrape this caramel off and reuse it for something else, I just lamely threw mine away.

10. Next stick these pretty apples in the fridge for many hours to cool the caramel completely. I put them in the fridge for about 3-4 hours before moving on to the next step. When I pulled mine out again, the caramel was still a little soft to the touch, but I went ahead with the next step - the chocolate!
11. Well, first line up more parchment paper and cookie sheets.
12. I melted the dark chocolate in the same way in the microwave. About 2 minutes total, in 30 second intervals, stirring in between. I did not end up adding anything to thin out the chocolate since I always seem to make my chocolate seize up when I do this. The melted chocolate chips by themselves turned out to be a perfect thickness once they were properly melted.
13. I did not dip the caramel-covered apples in the chocolate coating, but instead used a spoon to well, spoon, the melted chocolate over the apples. I then used a spatula (or rubber scraper technically) to smooth the chocolate around on the apples. This seemed to work fairly well and the toppings cover up most imperfections. If you are doing a lot of apples, I would recommend keeping the apples you are not ready to dip yet in the fridge as the caramel starts to soften again at room temperature and you do not want the chocolate to melt the caramel or it just makes a mess.
13. Toppings! I held the apples over a larger, empty plate, and took handfuls of the toppings one at a time and simply sprinkled them on top of the apples as I turned them. This worked really well! The toppings that drop on the plate you can simply reuse on the apple you are working on.

14. You can optionally melt and drizzle white chocolate on any of the apples for a really neat look too! I simply melted some white chocolate in a bowl and used a fork to drizzle the chocolate over the apples.
15. Once you are finished topping each apple - place them all on new parchment paper and cookie sheets and stick back in the fridge. Wait a few more hours until the chocolate has hardened and they are done!
15. You can also decorate the sticks by tying a piece of fall-themed ribbon around them or putting a sticker on them - or however else you could think to make them look more festive.

They are so, so delicious and your friends and family will love you for it I promise. :)

In case you're wondering, these sell 3 for 49.95 plus shipping on chocolatecoveredcompany.com.

Habitat Construction

In the midst of looking for a job, I have been trying to stay busy during the day 1) Looking for a job and 2) Staying involved in my community. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go with a friend to work at Habitat for Humanity in West Dayton.
The last time I worked at a Habitat site was in high school, and even then I probably only volunteered half a dozen times. When Gina and I pulled up to the site there were about 5-6 men sitting outside the house on a lunch break. Gina and I kinda exchanged thoughts on how this wasn't exactly what we were anticipating, but we'd give it a try anyway! Upon introducing ourselves, we learned that 1 of the men was a contracted electrician, three were from a volunteer group called 'Catch the Spirit', and 1 of the guys was a habitat employee, Keith, who has been in construction for about 20 years.
We were there in the afternoon from about 12:30-4 and I think Gina and I both had a really great time. I learned several new things about construction.
The first is what is called a 'Crow's foot' marking.
This is kind of lengthy - but it is a very imforative description of what a crow's food mark is:
A crow’s foot is a v-shaped mark that forms a vertex or V-shape. The point of the V designates the point to be marked (whether for a cutting or positioning)



In many circumstances a crow’s foot is better than a single line, because the point of the V marks where you draw a cross-line that intersects the V and divides the wood or other material. If you are simply drawing a straight line initially, you might end up with an intersecting line that is not straight. The crow's foot prevents that by dictating only a single point in which the intersecting line is meant to be drawn through.

I used a construcion 'square' which is a special type of ruler to mark the intersection of the crow's foot for where to cut the piece of wood. The raised lip that you can see in the picture is held flush against one side of the wood while you use the ruler edge to line up where you want to draw your intersecting line through the V of the crow's foot.






I also got to use a power saw to cut about 8 eight pieces of wood. One of the pieces I cut too short. Keith had told me we needed a piece that was 40 3/8". Instead I cut a piece that was 38 3/8". Thankfully Keith is used to working with unskilled laborers, and was very kind about my mistake. I was able to mostly rescue the piece as I needed another piece later that day to be cut at 37 3/8" so I only ended up wasting an inch of the 2x4 through my mistake.

Two other terms that I learned were 'light' and 'heavy' in reference to measurements. Instead of saying 12 inches and 7/16 of an inch, you can say 12 inches and 3/8 of an inch, heavy.

This simply means 12 inches and 3/8 of an inch, plus 1/16 of an inch.

Or in the case of 3/8 of an inch, light, it would be 3/8 of an inch minus 1/6 of an inch, meaning 5/16 of an inch.

By the time I finished nailing (with some assistance) some 2x4's above the stairs (they were being used to form the floor of the attic) - I was able to do a pull-up from one of the boards that I nailed in. It was a test to see if my construction skills had worked - and I passed the test, haha. Thankfully for my safety, too. :)

I always like helping out with Habitat because of the long-lasting impact you have. I like helping to provide food and clothes as well to people - but there is something unique about helping to provide a permanent structure for somebody - an escape from the elements. You know that if you come back to a building site in 50, 60, 70 years - God-willing - that house is still going to be there, and you were a part of making that happen. That is a very good feeling.