Anyone who has ever been to a
county fair,
midway or
circus has seen the venerable
candy apple, the one
fruit that kids are happy to eat at any
time. Some enterprising
carnival enterpreneur took the noble apple, sweetest of
nature's treats, and gave it a good dose of red hot
Imperial cane sugar and
Food Drug & Cosmetic Red Dye No. 2, and a
lo! a legend was born. The confection has even given rise to a color of
automotive paint "
Candy apple red", a favorite among muscle car owners.
So, if you find yourself
hungry for a
dental work destroying pseudo-nutritional
good time, but are in an area naturally lacking in
carnival folk and their culinary skills, I have a solution:
Roll your own! Here is what you need to make your very own candy apples:
Ingredients:
2 cups granulated white table
sugar
1 cup
water
1/4 teaspoon
cream of tartar
Red
food coloring
Candy thermometer
Apples - I recommend
McIntosh for sweetness or
Granny Smith for tartness
Skewers or
popsicle sticks
Wash and dry your apples and
spear with the sticks before mixing the
candy shell. Mix the sugar, water and cream of tartar in a
saucepan, making sure to dissolve most of the sugar in the
water. You should have a
white sticky
liquid. Put on
high heat with candy thermometer positioned in center of
fluid. Bring the mixture to a boil.
Boil the mixture until it reaches
hard crack, which is when the liquid reaches
300 degrees F, immediately add red
food coloring and
stir, then quickly
dip the apples and set on a greased
cookie sheet. When dipping, try carefully spinning the apple in a full circle to ensure
complete coverage of the skin with the candy. Each batch candies approximately
1 dozen medium-sized apples.
On a side note, the
hard crack stage is the highest temperature you are likely to see specified in a
candy recipe. At this temperature, there is almost
no water left in the
syrup. That's 99%
sugar kids!
Another famous candy apple recipe around my house is for an
apple flavored shooter, which I recommend not be served to
children, unless they
ask real nice.
2 oz.
Amaretto Di Saronno
1 oz.
butterscotch schnapps
Top up with
apple juice to 4 oz. Serve straight up, ice cold.
Enjoy!
Addendum:
shimmer says over in the
UK, candy apples go by the name
toffee apples. They usually sell them at funfairs and at the seaside. They are a
universal treat!