My family has tried so many caramel apple recipes over the years, with many failures. Sometimes the caramel coating would turn rock hard and be impossible to cut, let alone bite… sometimes the caramel would slide right off the apple when dipping… sometimes they just plain tasted bad. But I have great news! We found the best caramel apple recipe ever; it’s super easy and absolutely delicious.
Click here for the best caramel apple recipe of all time!
Here is what I have learned from experience with the recipe:
- Use a 2-qt. saucepan. The caramel will come close to the top when it is cooking, but it doesn’t spill over and it’s much easier to dip the apples when the caramel is deeper in the pan.
- Cook on medium heat and stir constantly.
- Don’t get discouraged when the temperature stays around 233 degrees for a while. This is called the phase transition and while it looks like nothing is happening and you did something wrong, a lot is going on in the caramel mixture and it will make it to the target temperature after it passes this phase.
- Take the caramel off the heat when it reaches 246 degrees. It will continue to rise in temperature when you take it off the burner so if you undershoot the temperature a bit the caramel won’t get too hard as it cools.
- It says to butter the wax paper generously, but I just rub the stick of butter across the paper and it works great.
We used Empire and Jonathan apples this year because that’s what we picked this past weekend, but you can use any kind of tart apples you prefer… we have used McIntosh in the past for example.
Still haven’t gone apple picking?
There are a few places left with apples on the trees. Check out the apple orchard list!
