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After Halloween - Candy Apple help needed.....

15 years ago

Hello all,

I made candy apples for a Halloween gala BUT not successfully. I have volunteered to do them again for Thanksgiving. Help is needed.

First - no help needed for caramel apples.

Second - help needed for hard red candy type apples.

Here is what I did. The standard 2 cups sugar with 1/2 cup Corn Syrup and 1/2 cup water -- boiled until 295 - 300 degrees on a candy thermometer. After reaching temp 1/8 tsp of Wilton red food coloring paste was added with pot off stove. The sugar was never stirred while it was cooking. The sugar soltion began to crystalize within minutes and usually after only 2-3 apples had been dipped. I ended up making 4 pots of 'candy' and covering about 50 apples. A good 25 of the apples were cloudy because the sugar began to crystalize. In the end I began to just let the sugar boil slowly as I dipped the apples. The sugar had a burnt smell ((to me)) and began to look amber in color instead of red. The kiddos ate them up but when I do Thanksgiving I want the apples to be red and not cloudy or amber.

Anyone who has experience in making candy apples -OR- clear lollipops -- PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

Thanks,

DL

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Comments (3)

lorijean44
15 years ago
My first thought is that you need to work in smaller batches. That's a lot of candy to keep warm while you're dipping your apples if you're trying to make 4 dozen candy apples! All the recipes I've seen are for 1 dozen apples (at the most).

You might try Tastespotting or Foodgawker to compare recipes/techniques.

50 apples - you're brave! :-D

Lori
cookie8
15 years ago
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
1. Lightly grease cookie sheets. Insert craft sticks into whole, stemmed apples.
2. 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.
3. 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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dancinglemons
Original Author
15 years ago
lorijean44,
Thanks for the links. I should have specified - I did not try to do 50 apples at one time. I made 4 batches to do some with each batch.

cookie8,
Thanks for the recipe and the information. I have done some research since posting this inquiry.

I have made small batches of candy using cream of tartar and boiling the sugar mixture to 310 - still got a minimum of crystalization but not as much using cookie8's recipe. I learned about humidity!! The kitchen I was using was being used by other folks to steam hot dogs and they were less than 3 feet from me. I now know that humidity is a big huge "NO NO" when making any kind of hard candy.

Thanks one and all!!

DL

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