Manageability – Not as hard as people warned.
Martha’s recipes can be tricky (or treaty), and a lot of people had a lot of spooky scary things to say about this take on a classic Halloween treat. But I’m here to calm your fears, my little witches. Marth Stewart’s Classic Caramel Apples require a bit of finesse and concentration, but it’s not the scary campfire story people made them out to be.
If you’ve never made caramel before, and you panic about possibly melting sugar, I’m here to give you the head’s up. You will be making caramel and melting sugar. This means there’s a high probability you could end up with a burnt flavor. If you do? Whatever, just tell people you made them over a campfire. People will be like “damn, that’s impressive!” The plastic sticks I got from the seasonal section of the grocery store – I’m not trying to eat a real piece of wood like some stupid 1790’s pilgrim.
But if you follow Goddess Martha’s instructions, and don’t eat hot things too fast, you honestly should be good. These are a cute Halloween treat, and could be fun for a small gathering on All Hallows Eve. And fun fact for cleaning, soaking your dishes in water will dissolve the caramel for easy clean up. Wish I had known that before I spent 20 minutes scraping caramel off one plate with a knife.
Ingredients
Ingredient Checklist
- 9 assorted apples, room temperature. “Assorted” means different types of apples. Apparently if you’re my husband you need that definition.
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup light corn syrup
- 1/2 cup heavy cream, room temperature
- 3/4 cup coarsely chopped cashews, for dipping
- Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon, for pressing
- 2 ounces white chocolate, chopped
Directions
- Insert a 5-inch dowel or nontoxic twig into the stem end of each apple.
- Combine sugar and corn syrup in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, and stir. Cover, and cook over medium-high heat until sugar melts. Uncover, and continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until mixture is dark golden, about 10 minutes.
- Slowly drizzle in heavy cream. Remove from heat, and stir until smooth. Transfer caramel to a small metal bowl (I used my mixer’s bowl). Let stand 3 minutes to let caramel thicken slightly, then dip bottom of 1 apple to test if caramel is thick enough. If most of the caramel runs off of apple, let caramel cool 1 to 2 minutes more, then try again.
- Dip 3 apples, including test apple, 1 at a time, into caramel to coat three-quarters of each apple. Let excess drip off, and scrape bottom of apples against the side of bowl (if caramel begins to harden, reheat in bowl over a pot of simmering water). Immediately after coating each apple, dip into nuts, using your fingers to help them adhere. Transfer each apple as decorated to a baking sheet lined with parchment or a nonstick baking mat, and let set completely, about 30 minutes.
- Coat 3 more apples with caramel as above, this time pressing each with salt flakes along top edge of caramel immediately after coating. Transfer to lined baking sheet, and let set.
- Coat the 3 remaining apples with caramel. Transfer to lined baking sheet, and let set.
- Place white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir until melted and completely smooth. Or, you know, just microwave it like a normal person, which is way faster. Why does Martha have to make everything so fucking hard?
- Fill a small resealable plastic bag with chocolate, and snip a tiny hole in 1 corner. One at a time, hold the 3 plain caramel apples horizontally over baking sheet, drizzle with chocolate in a back-and-forth motion, spinning apple as you drizzle. Return to baking sheet to set, about 30 minutes.