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Anyone have any tips for making candy apples?

13 years ago

I really want to give out candy apples this halloween but am not having much luck making them. I am making the real candy ones not caramel. I made them with six different apples to see which one holds up the best (spartan, yellow delicious, mac, empire, gala and cortland). Well, on the outside the spartan looks best as it doesn't seem to ooze apple juice. Now my problem is the candy coating is pretty sticky on the outside. It's good as far as getting a crunch and a nice thin coating but there is a lot of stick there so I think it's a fail. Do you think cooking it a couple of degrees hotter might help? Would it be recipe? Any successful candy apple makers out there? It looks so easy but...

6 medium red Delicious apples

6 wooden popsicle sticks

3 cups sugar

2/3 cup light corn syrup

2/3 cup water

1 teaspoon vinegar

6-8 drops red food coloring

Wash and dry apples; remove stems.

Insert wooden sticks into stem end of each apple; set aside.

Combine next 4 ingredients in a heavy saucepan; mix well.

Cook over medium heat until mixture reaches 295 degrees (use a candy thermometer), stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat; stir in food coloring.

Quickly dip apples into mixture; allow excess to drip off.

Place apples on a buttered baking sheet to cool.

BTW, I made mine orange with purple sugar on the bottom. I want to use black sugar next time.

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Comments (7)

cookie8
Original Author
13 years ago
I forgot to mention that I only had almost 1/3 cup of white corn syrup so I used golden corn syrup for the remainder.
Rusty
13 years ago
Just a guess on my part.
I think you would want "hard crack" stage for this.
On my candy thermometer, that is 300 degrees.
I don't know how that would affect the thickness of the coating, though.

And it may be simply that the humidity is too high.
That would have a definite effect on the candy.

I'm wondering how a few drops of cinnamon oil would be in your recipe.
Apples and cinnamon.
Made for each other.

And I really like your idea of making them orange,
with colored sugar on the bottom.
Very clever idea!

Rusty
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Hey DL I spent years making candy apples and this is my first year ever getting them perfect. This is the recipes I used (from Allrecipes) and they gave a pretty thin, hard crunch shell. I even heated to 315 accidently and still very good. * 15 apples * 2 cups white sugar * 1 cup light corn syrup * 1 1/2 cups water * 8 drops red food coloring Directions Lightly grease cookie sheets. Insert craft sticks into whole, stemmed apples. In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine sugar, corn syrup and water. Heat to 300 to 310 degrees F (149 to 154 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard, brittle threads. Remove from heat and stir in food coloring. Holding apple by its stick, dip in syrup and remove and turn to coat evenly. Place on prepared sheets to harden. I scrape the bottom of the apple after dipping, dip into pretty sugar (the decorating kind not the fine baking stuff. As soon as they hardened and kind of cooled I would wrap up to keep out moisture and to prevent them from getting sticky. I did stir at the beginning until sugar was dissolved.
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cookie8
Original Author
13 years ago
Good thought Rusty. I made pasta last night in a huge pot. Just before I put in the pasta my husband "I need bread" so ran out to get some and I let the water boil and boil, shut it off, boiled some more, etc. He had our two youngest with him so it took him longer. By the time he got home the house was like a sauna. I made the candy apples about 3 hours later so that probably affected it. I found another recipe with Red Hots, I will try that one too. I will boil to 300 next time.
cookie8
Original Author
13 years ago
It has been my quest for years to make candy apples. Your humidity thing was it! I always let the apples sit after making them and I did another trial batch and wrapped them as soon as they hardened and they seem to last up to two days. That's exactly what I've been looking for. Yay, mystery solved for me. (I feel like I'm on a bad episode of Scooby Doo saying that).
cookie8
Original Author
13 years ago
Oh, and another really good tip was to wash the apples with baby wipes (can't believe I use those things on my little guy) to get the wax off.
User
13 years ago
I have a recipe in the holiday section, take a look. You might find some good recipes there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Recipes
Rusty
13 years ago
Glad your problem is solved, cookie8.

Rusty

( But baby wipes? ? ? Who'd a thunk it! size>)

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