Making Apples

I said I would write a blog about this, and I should've done it a week ago, but it was so miserable that I decided to wait until I had a happier ending for you. And it was a struggle to get there.

So last week, I invited Melinda over to have a little class, if you will, on making chocolate dipped apples. She is an expert on anything food related. In my eyes, anyway. She can even name like every kind of flour there is. Did you know that all purpose flour isn't really all purpose? I tried to make a cake from scratch and it was hor-ri-ble and when I told Melinda about it, she immediately asked what kind of flour I used. "What do you mean, what kind? There are only two kinds: self rising and all purpose." To which she responded, "No, there's cake flour, pastry flour, wheat flour, bleached flour, self rising, all purpose..."

Ok, anyway, back to expert Melinda. So she told us ahead of time what we should by. She said to get the caramel apple wrap stuff, granny smith apples, the chocolate stuff and whatever topping I want. So I go to the store and buy my stuff. Market Basket had two kinds of caramel apple stuff, one of which was WAY cheaper and made like twice the apples! Hot Dog, I found a deal.

Ok, so cheaper is not always better. Lisa shows up with her stuff and she has something totally different than what I have. I bought the crap that you actually have to cook and dip the apples in, not the caramel already made that you just wrap around the apple.

*What Not to Buy!

*This is what you want!

But Melinda the expert says, Oh, just cook it and lets try it out. But on her advice, we let the caramel cook to hard ball stage, since she used this stuff once and it wouldn't set up well enough to harden to the apple.

It was quite the learning experience. To sum it all up, here's what I learned about making these apples:

1. Don't ever ever cook caramel to hardball stage. It not only sticks and gets hard, it's tougher than super glue!
2. Don't ever place the dipped apples on wax paper. Contrary to what you might think, caramel sticks to wax paper, and it ain't coming off.
3. When trying to pry apples from said wax paper, make sure you don't let them touch each other. Otherwise you will end up with six apples all cemented together.
4. A serrated knife is your best bet for prying the apples apart, as well as for sawing through the bottoms of the apples to get the wax paper off. At this point, just cut off the entire bottom of the apple. There is no other alternative.
5. Once you get your apples to a point when they are ready to dip in the chocolate, just know that chocolate does not stick to raw apples.
6. Chocolate sticks to metal pans. So if you are thinking you'll move away from the wax paper since it was such a disaster before, don't forget to grease your pan. Chocolate is to the pan as caramel is to hardball stage.
7. Don't ever just blindly trust an expert! She may tell you to cook to hardball, but really, she doesn't know. She may tell you to just use wax paper, but really, she doesn't know. And she may tell you you don't need to grease your pan, but really, SHE DOESN'T KNOW!!!!

Basically, I made an entire batch of apples that I couldn't give to teachers. My only other alternative was to eat them all myself so I don't kill anyone else's dental work.

Since this week is teacher appreciation week, I braved another apple attempt.

This time, I bought the apple wraps. WOW! Big difference. I had those apples covered in caramel in 5 minutes flat! As opposed to the hour and a half it took to cook it before.

I can't say that tonight was totally without a learning experience though. Did you know that over melting chocolate actually hardens it?! Who would've thought!!


And letting it cool actually melted it again! Geez.

With that said, I did it!! Here' s the final product! Go Me!!



Thanks, Melinda!! It was a blast!!