Specialty Apples

Decided to try my hand at the specialty apples I’ve seen in stores for as much as $10 and wanted to share how I did it.

The first step is to dip the apples in boiling water to remove the wax. Did you know that the apples you buy in grocery stores are covered in wax? I’ve been eating wax all this time and never knew it. Gross.

Next we want to melt the caramel. Add caramel and two tablespoons of water a medium saucepan. Turn on low-medium heat.

Stir very slow and evenly because if you stir too fast bubbles will form on the apples as it cools (Learned this the hard way). The caramel should look like this when it’s ready.

Next we insert popsicle sticks into the apple and apply the caramel to them. Tilt the saucepan on the side for even coverage and roll the apples in the melted caramel.

Hold the apples over the saucepan to allow the excess caramel to drip off. Wipe the bottom of the apples off to minimize the amount of pooling at the bottom of the apple.

If you are planning on covering the apple in some sort of topping like nuts, make sure you have the topping on a plate ready to go. Immediately roll the apple in the topping. If you wait too long the topping won’t stick. If this happens, it’s not that big of a deal. I accidentally left them too long, so I added an extra two tablespoons of water to the leftover caramel and created a thinner caramel to roll the apples in so I could add the topping.

If you are planning on doing a chocolate apple, it’s best to use baker’s chocolate to make the melted chocolate. I used chocolate chips and it was a disaster. It turns out chocolate chips have a hardening agent that allows them to keep their shape during baking. This makes it very difficult to melt them. However, if all you already have chocolate chips, no need to go out and buy something else. Just use a double boiler. Boil 2 inches of water and place the chips in the top pot. Constantly stir the chocolate until it’s melted.

I added some oil to the chocolate to thin it out a bit, a trick I learned from using a chocolate fountain. Then I used a spoon to drizzle the chocolate over the apples. I used both milk and white chocolate. It looks a little messy for my taste, so I would practice your drizzling technique a little bit before doing it on the real thing.

After letting the apples harden in the refrigerator for an hour or two, I placed them in a gallon ziplock bag.

Instead of going out and buying bakers bags, I just used what I already had. I just cut off the top of the bag where the ziplock was.

Next take a piece of double sided tape, fold each corner and stick it to the side of the bag.

Then close the top and tie with a ribbon.

And you’re done! Now you have a great gift for well under $10, but you don’t have to tell your friends that. They’ll never know the difference.