Healthy Halloween Treat –
Honey Caramel Apples
When kids react badly to white sugar, it’s hard to figure out what to bring to Halloween parties or give to the neighborhood kids as treats. Wrapped with lovely orange or black cellophane, tied with orange and black ribbons, Honey Caramel Apples is a good choice. Apples are healthy, homemade caramel is sweet without containing white sugar. You will be the hit of the Halloween season with this treat!
Note: Please be careful working with hot caramel, as it can burn you easily.
Are Apples Healthy?
One of my food coaches uses raw apples as the basis for almost every smoothie recipe he develops, because apples are rich in phytonutrients. Here is a great post about apple’s many health benefits.
The Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 - 8 small organic apples,cold
- 1 cup heavy organic cream
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup Bee Wild Raw Honey
- Veggie Wash
- Popsicle Sticks
- Candy Thermometer
Instructions
- Put 1/4 cup of Veggie Wash in a bowl of cool, good quality water and soak the apples for at least 5 minutes. This will remove any wax of other toxic substances from the apples.
- Rinse and dry the apples.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Put the apples stem side up on the parchment paper, leaving room between apples.
- Put a Popsicle Stick in each apple.
- Fill a large bowl or your kitchen sink with ice water.
- In a medium, thick-bottomed saucepan heat the cream and salt until tiny bubbles start forming where the milk touches the pan - just before a simmer.
- Stir in the honey.
- Bring the mixture to a boil.
- Now reduce the heat to an active simmer and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for about 15-20 minutes minutes or until the mixture reaches about 255-260F degrees.
- To stop the caramel from cooking, very, very carefully set the bottom of the saucepan in the bowl of cold water you prepared earlier - taking special care not to get any of the water in the caramel mixture.
- Stir until caramel begins to thicken up - you want the caramel to be thin enough that it will easily coat your apples, but not so thin that it will run right off.
- If the caramel thickens too much simply put the pot back over the burner for 10 seconds or so to heat it up a bit.
- Once dipped, place each apple on the parchment lined baking sheets and allow the caramel to cool and set.
Many thanks to our regular recipe readers for your continued support. We would love to hear from you. Please leave comments on the blog or our Facebook Fan Page.
Photo by ktylerconk/Courtesy Flickr
