Caramel Apples

A guy my husband works with took a few vacation days to go apple picking (yeah, he seriously makes GOOD money doing that!) and brought some back. He gave a bag to us so we had a ton of apples to figure out what to do with. We decided to go with caramel apples! The day we decided to do this, my husband came home with more apples too... looks like there might be some apple pie or something in the future as well :)

I got this recipe after seeing a picture for caramel apples in my recent Taste of Home magazine. They had the recipe on their site.

First, make sure your candy thermometer is reading the right temperature. You can do this by boiling a pot of water and putting the thermometer in it. It should read 212 degrees. If it doesn't, adjust the temperature in the recipe accordingly. Example: my thermometer read 205 in boiling water, so the final temperature of 248 should actually read 241. (This is one of those times that I seriously wonder why we don't use the metric system here... water boils at 212F or 100C, freezes at 32F and 0C... firm ball candy is 248F or 120C)

Second, even with our first apple, the dip wasn't quite deep enough in the pan. Maybe doubling this recipe or using a pan that isn't too wide would help with that.

1/2 cup butter, cubed

2 cups packed brown sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

Dash of salt

1 - 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

10-12 popsicle sticks

10-12 apples

Desired toppings (nuts should be chopped)

• Wash and dry apples, remove stems, and insert popsicle sticks into top.
• In a large saucepan, melt butter.
• Add brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture starts to boil.
• Stir in milk, cook and stir until a candy thermometer reads 248 degrees (firm-ball stage).
• Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
• Dip each apple in to hot caramel mixture, turn to coat.
• Dip bottom in desired topping.
• Place on greased wax paper or parchment paper until set.