OT - Favourite caramel recipe for caramel apples?

Have you tried looking up recipes for 'toffee apples'? They should give you a hard toffee solution.

Pat on the green

My caramel making experience is that the longer you cook it the chewier it gets- as in cooking it to a few degrees hotter than what you've been doing. If you don't use a candy thermometer (which I HIGHLY recommend), when you drop the still cooking caramel into water to test it, you can feel the con sistency of the formed candy ball, so go for a slightly firmer ball stage. Candy is tricky, so don't get crazy! LOL Just a couple of degrees will make a big difference. Also, be sure your apples are perfectly dry and a nd dip them so they are covered completely including the stick where it goe s into the apple. That will 'seal' the caramel coating and not give it an opportunity to slide off if it's a complete 'ball' over the apple. And alw ays try to make candy on a relatively dry day rather than a humid or rainy day. The humidity will mean you need to cook the candy to a few extra deg rees in itself.

Your 'too soft' caramel is wonderful for dipping apple slices or, if it's r eally soft, pouring over ice cream for a sundae or even on yogurt or a bit mixed into peanut butter for an extra special sandwich rather than the stan dard pb&j. Jars of dipping caramel make wonderful gifts if you end up with a lot of extra from your 'failed' too soft batches. ;-)

Good luck with you 'experiments'!

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

PS: > Hello, we're having a Halloween party in a few weeks, and I've a handful

How about this recipe

Janner France

Haven't tried it, but this sounds a crispy one and it even has a tip for making the toffee stick

There's also a recipe for Bonfire Toffee - a must for Bonfire Night when I was a child

You could combine the two occasions or have an excuse for two different types of toffee!

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk