- If you're looking for an easy and delicious fall treat
that's fun to make with kids,
you've got to try my homemade Caramel Apples.
When apples are in season, this is a must make recipe.
Hey, you're watching "Preppy Kitchen," where I, John Kanell,
teach you how to make delicious homemade dishes
to share with your family and friends.
These Caramel Apples will be ready in a snap.
So let's get started.
First off, let's talk about the apples.
You have a lot of choices here,
and really any eating apple will work.
I like the traditional Granny Smith
because it's really tart
and that pairs nicely with the caramel.
Another thing though,
is that your apple's probably covered in wax,
we need to get that off because the wax is slippery,
and when the hot caramel touches it, what's gonna happen?
Slides right off, not good.
So take your apple and dip it in some really hot,
scalding or almost boiling water,
and then use a clean kitchen towel and rub it vigorously.
Polish it up like you're giving it to a teacher.
Just continue this process.
I have a couple honeycrisps in here
because that's Brian's favorite apple,
so it'll be a nice treat for him.
I love fall in New England,
the beautiful colors, the brisk chill in the air
and of course, all the apples.
We have a ton of apples here on the farm
and even though I'm using the Granny Smith,
our varieties are so delicious too, perfect.
After the stems are removed,
it's time to attach an apple stick,
add it through the center,
and then try and get it straight through, not too crooked.
These are something else that you can get there,
pieces of plastic that look like sticks,
that's what they look like.
All right, the apples is gonna hang out in the fridge
while we make the caramel.
It's not a must-do,
but I find that a cool apple
kind of helps the caramel cling on and set up more quickly.
Now it's time to make the caramel,
and if you've made caramel before,
it's very similar but different.
So here's the deal.
(laughs loudly)
Let me start off by adding
almost all the ingredients into our pot.
Two cups or 400 grams of brown sugar,
and I'm using a combination of light and dark,
one, because it doesn't really matter
and two, it's like the two open bags I had so.
I need half a teaspoon of salt,
five tablespoons or about 70 grams of unsalted butter,
if you want to use salted butter,
just reduce the salt by a quarter of a teaspoon
that you're adding in,
one and a half cups or about 350 ml of heavy cream,
and finally, the secret ingredient
for your caramel is Corn Syrup,
this will help it become much more sticky
and cling on to your apples.
I don't use Corn Syrup all the time,
but when I do, it's because it's necessary,
it really is needed for some recipes.
Before I put this on heat,
here's what you should have on hand,
because you do not wanna go searching around
once this has started.
Okay, a wooden spoon.
This is to stir things in the beginning,
and the wooden spoon is not going
to change the temperature of the caramel very much,
and because it doesn't conduct heat,
it's not gonna burn your hand, double bonus.
A little bit of water to dip your pastry brush into,
the pastry brush will brush the sides down,
it's really important not to scorch the glide.
And the last thing is a candy thermometer, right?
Let's set this over a medium, low heat right now,
and we're gonna stir until things
are melted in homologous.
So once it's all melty and fine,
then we can stop stirring.
All right? So I'm just gonna stir this over that medium,
low heat, I'm really waiting for that butter to melt.
So, you can speed this up through editing.
(soft chiming)
Everything is basically melted,
I'm gonna stop stirring and switch my pastry brush.
Just wash the sides down,
you don't want all that stuff burning.
If you watch my channel, you've heard this before,
but having a nice thick walled pot is so important.
A lot of times, if you're using a really thin walled pot,
scorches everything either invest in a nice pot,
or you can find them secondhand,
super cheap and see that the walls are thick,
it makes a huge difference, that's all washed down.
Now we can switch to our thermometer
and just check things out.
I want this to be in the Soft Ball Stage,
that's 235 to 245 Fahrenheit,
I'll put the Celsius in the card blocks,
I don't remember it offhand.
This is why you don't wanna use a small pot for this,
In fact, the caramel will be bubbly,
so if it was a tiny pot, huge mess, no, no, no.
We're gonna take this off heat,
it just reached 235 after a caramel has been off heat
for a minute or two,
go ahead and mix in one tablespoon
or 15 ml of a nice vanilla,
they'll add some good flavor to your caramel.
Okay, mix that In, and you can see
the consistency of the caramel
is pretty like, it's pretty thickened.
We're gonna set the caramel aside for five to 10 minutes,
it kind of depends on the ambient temperature
of your kitchen, but the dipping temperature
is gonna be around 190 Fahrenheit.
So yeah, this is like still exactly 235 degrees
(pot clicking)
and take a minute.
Make sure that caramel's totally off heats.
I was like, why is this still like 0.3 degrees cooler.
It should be cooler by now,
It's 'cause it was on ultra low,
I turned the knob the wrong way.
While the caramel chills,
set up a little station for dipping them
because you wanna work kind of quickly
and chances are, you want to decorate these apples as well,
you could totally do them just plain, a caramel though
they will be delicious and pretty.
I'm gonna to do some mini M&Ms,
some sprinkles and some chopped peanuts.
So, chop the peanuts on your tiny cutting board,
dump that into a bowl.
The Last thing you need is a place to put the apples,
they're gonna be super sticky and it would be heartbroken
if your apple was stuck to a piece of paper or the counter.
So you want them to cool on the least sticky thing possible.
It's gonna be a silicone sheet
if you have any Silicone Baking Sheets, get one out
and if you don't, use a piece
of parchment paper, it'll also work.
My caramel just hit one 190
so, let's pour into a little bowl,
this stuff is delicious by the way,
and yes, you can make caramels out
of this like little packaged caramels,
do it, same recipe, dip your apple in,
give it a little bit of a turn
and you can even scrape the bottom off
if you want it to have less caramel on the bottom,
now it's ready to either place
onto our Silicone Baking Sheet
or you can decorate it.
So this one, for example,
could get some little mini M&Ms cutting it.
Is that too many or just enough? I don't know.
(dryer whooshing)
Okay, so here's the real,
if you see a bunch of air bubbles hanging out
in your caramel,
that's not gonna be giving you a pretty apple,
So use a hairdryer or a heat gun
if you have one and just pop them.
(dryer whooshing)
It's back to dipping apples,
here we go, and then continue decorating it,
this one's gonna get some sprinkles on it,
it doesn't seem to get a little bit of everything on it.
So, some peanuts, some M&Ms and then some sprinkles,
it's the Monster Apple.
This monster is ready to cool down
and I might be jumping into it later
but I wanted to talk to you
about what to do with the excess caramel,
this is not waste,
We're gonna make some little caramel candies for it.
So clear this away and let's move along.
Just plop them either onto a piece of silicone
like I am or onto a very like maybe lightly oiled
piece of parchment paper,
form it into either like a log, a brick,
whatever shape you want.
and as you can see,
it really will not stick
to the silicone and this is perfect.
From a caramel into a breaker log
and then set it aside to cool completely.
Once it's cooled, you can cut it into smaller pieces
and either enjoy it right away
or wrap it into a partial paper for later.
Now let's cut that caramel apple up,
I want a bite.
If you like this recipe, check out my fall playlist,
all my favorite fall recipes in one playlist for you.
But now it's time for a bite.
That was so delicious,
I love the apple,
the caramel and the toppings
all working together and every bite.
If you like my recipes hit that like button subscribe
and I'll see you in the next fall video.