Making delicious double chocolate caramel apples required a couple of tweaks to the directions last Saturday when we made these for the first time ever.
This summer one of my nephews and his family, wife and five children, moved near me. To say I am excited is an understatement. I love having family close by, and am enjoying spending time with them, especially the children.
Yes, I love seeing my nephew and his wife, but being around children keeps you young and up-to-date with the world. Being with curious, creative, happy-to-be-alive, frustrating, crazy teenagers is one of the things I miss since I retired from education. Every day was a new world in a high school classroom. Some days were routine, others fraught with drama, but there were those days when the best teachable moments occurred . . . either me having a chance to really reach a student . . . or a day when a student really reached me and taught me something.
This past Saturday my nephew's wife, her mom (visiting from out of town), and four of the five children came over, and we made double chocolate caramel apples for the first time for all of us.
Saturday was one of those perfect Fall days you look forward to all year. Clear blue skies, low humidity, and temperatures in the low 70s. Pure perfection after so many days of overcast rainy days.
And topped off with a family Fall activity!
D E L I C I O U S D O U B L E C H O C O L A T E
C A R A M E L A P P L E S
Thanks to Lisa at Celebrate Creativity for planting the idea to make double chocolate caramel apples. After seeing her beautiful photos of the ones she made, I knew this would be a great Fall activity to do with my grand niece and nephews. I saved a photo on my Pinterest Fall board and showed it to my niece and the kiddos one night when I was at their house for supper. See how great having family near by is . . . you get invited to supper.
They were all aboard as soon as they saw Lisa's photo.
I attached Lisa's photo on the vertical metal chalkboard with a magnet for us to look at while we made our caramel apples.
Everyone began immediately following the directions I typed up and printed off for use. The kitchen was a beehive of activity led by my nephew's wife and her mother, but eagerly followed by all of the kids . . . 16-year-old boy, 15-year-old girl, 12-year-old boy, and 11-year-old boy. Everyone laughing and working away, checking what to do next.
Neither my niece nor her mother had ever made caramel apples. Both were excited to do it for the first time. As my niece worked she said,
"you are never too old to have a happy childhood."
The first layer on the apples went well. The cellophane-wrapped caramel cubes melted into a nice consistency and covered the apples.
While the caramel cooled, we worked on melting the milk chocolate for the next step. I bought semi-sweet chocolate morsels for making chocolate-chip cookies instead of chocolate drops used to make candy.
M I S T A K E
The morsels melted, but the consistency was lumpy, not smooth. We threw that batch away and started over with more chocolate chips. The second time we added water and that did the trick. The chocolate layer went on over the caramel.
After the milk chocolate layer, we rolled the apples in chopped walnuts.
The next layer was the second chocolate . . . white chocolate. We had better luck with the white chocolate chips melting into a good consistency for drizzling over the apple as the final layer.
While the final chocolate layer cooled, three or four people cut out Fall-themed gift tags to add to the caramel apples. There were three different styles of Fall tags that I found from Ann at On Sutton Place.
Ann has beautiful free printables on her blog all during the year. Some are free for downloading immediately from the blog post; others are available to newsletter subscribers only. I subscribe to receive an email from her once a week because I love everything she does.
We made enough caramel apples for everyone to have two . . . one for eating and one for giving away to a friend.
Plus, I made a few extra. Some are for us to eat. Some are for a houseguest who arrives the Monday after we made the caramel apples. Some are for giving to my friends with whom I play bridge.
My final version of a double dipped chocolate caramel apple has a real twig stem.
TIPS: Wash real stems in dish detergent soapy water, rinse thoroughly, use just before serving, and do not store caramel apples with real stems. The stem shown is not sturdy enough to hold the apple for eating.
Psst . . . a secret . . . the real twig stem in my apple is from a pear tree, not an apple tree.
One down . . . eight to go
for delicious double chocolate caramel apples
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Suggestion: Use chocolate for making candy instead of chocolate chips.
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