Candy Apples are a fun activity for the family, are cheap and easy to make, inspire nostalgia, and are a tasty way to use some of the bountiful apples this season. What’s not to love?

Well.. aside from sugar burns, anyway. While this is an easy recipe, I recommend keeping little hands away from the cooking sugar, and ideally away from the dipping process as well. Kids can have just as much fin picking out the apples, the flavors, etc… without the risk!

Candy Apples

Up to 10 large apples, washed and allowed to dry*
Up to 10 Candy apple sticks (skewers, chopsticks, whatever you want to use)
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups corn syrup
3/4 cup water
Several drops food coloring*
2-3 tsp flavoring*

Grease a cookie sheet, and/or line it with parchment paper. Set aside.

Prepare the apples: Remove all stems and stickers (if applicable). Insert stick into apple – They should go in at least halfway. Set aside.

In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, and water. Stir well, bring to a boil on medium or medium-high heat. Affix candy thermometer to pan.

Boil mixture, stirring occasionally, until it reaches 310 degrees. Remove from heat, quickly stir in food coloring and flavoring. Stir mixture until it stops boiling, and most of the “bubbles” disappear – this will minimize texture on your finished coating.

CAREFULLY dip each apple, one at a time, turning to coat completely & evenly. Allow excess candy to drip into the pan, then place on prepared cookie sheet. Be VERY careful – sugar burns are NOT fun! Leftover sugar syrup can be used to make Homemade Jolly Ranchers

Allow candy coating to cool completely – usually 30-45 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and enjoy, or wrap in cellophane to enjoy later.

*Apple Types, Coloring, and Flavoring: I like to flavor my candy apples with cherry, banana, or grape extracts… but you can flavor them however you’d like. I also like to color my candy to match: Purple for grape, yellow for banana, and so on.

I usually figure out what flavor I’d like to do, and then choose the apple type based on that. Grape and Banana candy look great on Red Delicious apples, Cherry and Grape look particularly nice on Granny Smith or Golden Delicious apples. Have fun with it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 7:07 am and is filed under Candy, Gift Ideas, Gluten Free, Holidays, Kid Favorites, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.