Candy Apples - Any Flavor

I bought a Candy Apple making kit from the store thinking it may be fun to make. I used to get them when I was a child but most of my girls had never seen or heard of a candy apple. So, I had a few minutes this afternoon and asked my youngest if she wanted to make them. She helped me put the ingredients into the pan and start stirring and boiling the mixture. I should have known better but we doubled the recipe using two boxes.


The reason I should have known better is when I make suckers, for some reason when you double the recipe, something goes wrong with the cooking and you end up with divinity type candy. My youngest had to leave mid cooking for dance. I was on a long distance call with Princess number 1. I noticed that the mixture looked done and told said princess that I needed to get off the phone. I started dipping the apples in the mixture and promptly burnt myself with hot candy. So, while I took care of the burn, the mixture over cooked and turned into a play dough looking mixture that had a divinity texture but good flavor. I figured that my girls could share it with their friends calling it "play dough candy."


Having already put the Popsicle sticks into the apples, I had to do something with them or they would go bad. After looking at the back of the box of candy mix for the apples, I found that it was the same ingredients as my sucker recipe. I figured I could make any flavor of candy apple I want now. So, I waited for the youngest Princess to arrive home from dance and we started again.


Candy Apple Recipe

2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2/3 cups corn syrup
coloring
flavoring


Put all ingredients into a sauce pan except for the flavoring. Bring to boil until it reaches the hard crack stage. This is when you put a few drops of the boiling mixture into cool water and it makes a cracking sound or is hard and makes strings of hard candy in the water. It looks something like this photo on the left. Once it reaches that stage, put a few drops of whatever flavoring in you would like and stir. My daughter chose "Tutti Fruity" and made the mixture green.


We then dipped the apples into the mixture trying to cover the whole apple and then placed them onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Make sure you don't touch the apples as they make mars on the candy and stick together making sharp little points. If you have a little candy mixture left over you can drop it, swirl it, zig-zag it onto the cookie sheet and it will make cute hard candy shapes you can put in a little snack bag for a treat.



I bought a box of 1000 Popsicle sticks at a craft store for fairly cheap. I used them for different crafts and caramel apples. Place them deep down into the center of the apple so they will be strong enough to hold up the apple. I used the smallest apples I could find to make the candy go further and so they would fit into the bags I purchased.


The apples cool rather quickly and become hard. I bought these gift bags in the wedding section at Walmart. They are by Wilton and are about $3.50 for 100 bags. I thought that was quite reasonable. I used some the other day to wrap caramel apples we made. I did have to cut the top down to the bottom of the neck to get the apples to fit but I thought they made a very cute wrap for inexpensive. I used all sorts of short ribbons I have left over from other projects to tie them at the base. They came out looking quite cute.



I have a niece that gave out chocolate covered apples for her wedding reception gift. I thought these would be less expensive and you could make them any color and flavor you wanted and wrap them with a colored ribbon for much less especially if you can get your apples at a discount by picking them yourself etc. With the bags being cheap as well you could make 300 for about $10 in bags, $1-$2 in sticks and $1 or $2 in ribbon. Sugar, corn syrup and flavoring are all quite inexpensive as well as you only need a few drops of flavor for each batch.



Just some thoughts. They would be cute for teacher appreciation week gifts, wedding or baby shower favors, class parties, scouts etc. They would be fun to make at a "back to school" party as well.



I thought I would show you the "play dough" candy and my burn as cautions for each. Don't double the batch. I have had two going at a time on different burners at alternating stages and that worked OK. On the burn, don't let small children help dip these. I was doing several things at the same time and should have been doing one. I used tea-tree oil and lavender oil and it hasn't hurt a bit. I am glad I know about those oils. Best thing I know for burns. Tea tree is 2 oz for $8 at WalMart. It is also great for baby teething! Be careful and have fun.