1950s

Dan Walker

Newark, New Jersey

The ingredients for caramel apples start with the same basic ingredients as candy apples: apples, a caramel apple stick, and the sweet coating. While candy apples have a candy coating, caramel apples have (you guessed it!) a caramel coating. This caramel coating can be made in two different ways.

Apples are a nutritious source of key nutrients, but dipping them in caramel adds several grams of added sugar as well as quite a few calories. While the occasional caramel apple won’t harm your health, eat a plain apple instead to reap the many rewards the fruit has to offer.

Caramel Apples Their softer yet chewy coating of creamy golden caramel is often rolled in chopped nuts, sprinkles, or bits of toffee for extra flavor and texture—which sometimes happens with candy apples too, though it’s not nearly as common.

Get rid of the wax That shiny wax that makes the apples so pretty, also makes it very hard to the caramel to cling to the apple. Make sure you don’t break the skin with the sandpaper, just lightly run the wax paper over the apple.

Too rich, and the caramel will slide off the apples as if they’re coated in Teflon; too lean, and you’ll chip a tooth. From there, the caramel is boiled until it reaches 250°F (121°C), driving off enough liquid to make a thick candy, but not so much that it becomes brittle or crisp.

To do this, bring a pot of water to the verge of a boil and dip your apples one at a time for just two to three seconds each. While the apple is still warm, rub it vigorously with a paper towel or a freshly laundered kitchen towel to remove the wax.

Chill the apples in the refrigerator for at least one day, if possible, before dipping. The cold apples will help the warm caramel stick more immediately onto the apples as you’re dipping.

It is always advisable to wash all fruit and vegetables before you eat them to ensure they are clean and to help remove bacteria from the outside. Peeling or cooking fruit and vegetables can also remove bacteria.

And while most of the food on your store shelves is grown without these pesticides, most bananas still are. The skins are coated with chemicals, and some are absorbed clear through into the part you eat.

Organic apples had an abundance of “good” bacteria, such as a number of probiotics that help the human gut and alleviate allergies. Conventional apples do have “good” bacteria, but not in abundance, and the results show conventional apples having more pathogenic bacteria than organic apples.

(Find out what other fruits and vegetables you should be buying organic here.) Buying organic apples willreduce your exposure to potential pesticide residues, since the USDA restricts all chemical pesticides. Research shows that rinsing your apples thoroughly under running water removes some pesticides.

Organic tastes sweeter Specific groups of bacteria known for health-affecting potential also weighed in favour of organic apples. Escherichia-Shigella, a group of bacteria that includes known pathogens – disease-causing micro-organisms – was found in most of the conventional apple samples, but not in organic apples.