Homemade Halloween Candy: Caramel Apples and Pumpkin Spice

Last year, the WCFoodies's caramel apples were a disaster. This year, Rebecca tries again - and then adapts the caramel into pumpkin spice and sea salt candies perfect for your Halloween party.

Homemade Halloween Candy: Caramel Apples and Pumpkin Spice Last year for Halloween, my brother Max and I tried to make Caramel Apples and it didn’t really work. I don’t really know what happened but somehow these candy apples, the caramel didn’t stick and it melted off. No good? I though I would try it again this year and see if I can better result this time. [This week on Working Class Foodies] Normally, to make Caramel Apples you need all of these things. Well, I found the recipe on 101CookBooks.com that only requires this, Heavy cream, Local Honey, and some Sea Salt. I was thrilled to find a recipe that skip down on a Corn Syrup and I love the flavor of honey, so this was definitely the recipe I wanted to use to my Caramel Apples. You can use your favorite kind of apple for this recipe. Just make sure that it’s firm and fresh and that the flesh isn’t bruised. If your apples are store bought, it’s important to remember to rinse them well in slightly soapy warm water to get off any wax. The form of farmers market, just rinse them under normal water because they shouldn’t have any wax on the middle. To make these Caramel Apples, remove the stem from your apples and skewer them on either chopstick or a candy stick. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat. Refill a large bowl half full with ice water. Combine 1 cup of heavy cream with ½ teaspoon of sea salt in a heavy bottom pan. While that’s heating up, insert your candy thermometer. Heat the cream and the salt just until tiny bubbles form on the bottom of the pan, just before the cream starts to simmer. At this point, stir in your cup of honey I really love the flavor of Vanilla extract with a few vanilla beans to my Caramel mixture. And bring it to a boil. Reduce your caramel to an active simmer and cook stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to 255˚ – 260˚F. This could take anywhere from 15 – 25 minutes. Once your caramel has reached 255˚ - 260˚F, stop the cooking by very, very carefully lowering the bottom of the pot into your bowl of ice water. Stir it until it stick and just enough to stick to the apples and then roll your apples in the caramel. Swirl the apples around until the caramel stops dripping off. And then place them on a parchment paper or your Silpat. We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, I’m going to show you what to do with your left over caramel. This Caramel Recipe wilts 6 – 8 caramel apples. But I wanted to see if I could turn this caramel into a candy of its own because it is after all, Halloween. I made pumpkin spiced caramels perfect for any Halloween gift basket. To make these caramels, you can follow the exact same steps for the caramel apples but add in about a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice of about ½ teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg when you add the honey to your boiling cream. Simmer this stirring constantly until it reaches 255˚ - 260˚F then pour your caramel into a buttered baking dish. Let it set and then sprinkle it with sea salt and a little add your pumpkin pie spice. And then cut it into pieces. Wrap it in parchment paper. Roll them up. And bag them. Your fantastic holiday Halloween trick, everybody will love them. This is an incredible simple and healthy alternative to normal caramels. The important thing here is the honey. It’s going to need a predominant flavor in your caramels so I highly recommend that you use your favorite honey. I use a local honey from Sag Harbor, New York because it’s my favorite tasting honey. You might need to spend a little bit more to get the quality of honey you want for these caramels but it’s totally worth it. Like I said, honey is the predominant flavor in theses caramels so it’s worth spending a little extra to get a high quality honey that you like the most. The Caramel Apple Recipe, you have owned 8 Caramel Apples for just under $6.00. We have total cost of about 70 cents per apple. For my Pumpkin Spice Caramels, I spent about $8.00 on the ingredients and you owned it over 3 dozen caramels which made about 6 bags of 6 caramels each. Now, it’s your turn. Let me know what your favorite Halloween candy is or better yet, share with me your favorite Halloween candy recipe and we’ll see you next week on Working Class Foodies. Check out some of our other episodes to find recipes that would go great with this dish by looking at any of these boxes around my face.