Wednesday, Oct. 01, 2008

Season's right for making caramel apples

Caramel apples were invented in the 1950s by Dan Walker, a sales representative for Kraft Foods.

According to legend, Walker and his young son came up with the idea after buying a red candied apple made with a hard sugar coating. Walker did a lot of experimenting but eventually figured out that the key to getting the caramel to stick to the apples was by adding a little water to the caramels as they melted. Kraft liked the idea so much that it began putting apple sticks inside caramel bags.

Here are a few tips for making caramel apples at home:

• On a day when the humidity is high, cook the candy about 2 degrees higher on your candy thermometer.

• Don't double your recipe. If you do, the mixture on the bottom of the pan will cook faster than the liquid on top and you won't have good results.

• Use a heavy, deep pan. The mixture will bubble and increase in volume as it cooks.

• Use a wooden spoon instead of a metal one. Often when a candy mixture turns grainy, it's because sugar crystals formed on a cold spoon and when it was dipped back into the hot mixture, it started a chain reaction that turned it grainy.

• If your recipe calls for butter, use it to grease the inside of the pan before adding the other ingredients. As the mixture cooks, the butter will melt and undissolved sugar will then fall into the liquid. Undissolved sugar grains also can cause the caramel to turn grainy.

• If your candy recipe is water-based, place a lid on the mixture for a few minutes after it begins to boil. The steam will wash sugar grains down the side of the pot and prevent a grainy texture.

• Don't rush the cooking by turning up the heat, and don't rush the cooling by placing the pan in cold water.