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Candy Apple Help

post #1 of 10
9/26/07 at 7:29am
Thread Starter 
I love candy apples, not caramel. It's been 9 years or so since I've had one and I decided to make some. I dug out my old Doubleday cookbook and found a recipe. It called for corn syrup, sugar, water, cinnamon candies (I used Red Hots.), and red food coloring. I cook it while stirring at moderate heat until the candies melted, then boiled it without stirring to 300F or hard crack point as directed. Then I dipped the apples and sat them on wax paper to cool. First off, they stuck to the waxed paper but hey, you can just take off the end where it pooled so no biggie. The problem is that I let them cool for over 4 hours and then wrapped in plastic wrap. That was Monday. This morning, I looked at them again (wasn't home yesterday) and the candy is all pooling at the bottom and bare apple is showing through. It's like it's melting. I have air conditioning running in my house and it's certainly not hot in here, nothing like the outdoor fairs where I've seen them sold in the past. The apples were dry before they were coated with candy.

Can anyone help me? I wondered if because this was a really old cookbook, maybe the cinnamon candies are no longer made the same way and that affected the way it turned out. No clue but I really want a good candy apple!
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post #2 of 10
9/26/07 at 8:20am
My guess is that it's the plastic wrap. Condensation is melting the candy. This is the type of product that you are always best off to small batch within a short time that you want them.
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post #3 of 10
9/26/07 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 
That is how the recipe said to wrap them. I made 9 for the kids and me. We tried to eat one Monday evening about 3 hours after they were made. They were gooey and stuck to your teeth so bad you couldn't really eat them.

Maybe they needed to cool longer?
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post #4 of 10
9/26/07 at 11:36am
Interesting possibility.... would maltitol, isomalt or other non-cane sugars cause this? I'm no pastry and sugar expert! Still, I think it has to do with the moisture-absorbing character of sugar.
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post #5 of 10
9/26/07 at 11:39am
I'm not a candy/sugar expert either; but would think that if the corn syrup-sugar mixture wasn't cooked to the proper sugar stage, then it would start to weep right away.
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post #6 of 10
9/26/07 at 2:21pm
Candy is one of my passions and the ingredients look to be fairly standard for a hard crack candy coating except for the Red Hots. Most candies contain some for of inverted sugar to help prevent recystalization. By adding additional corn syrup to the mix it could throw off the balance. Also the formula of the Red Hots might have changed over the years from when the book was written.

The recipes I've tried in the past were not much more than hard candy with cinnamon flavoring added they did a fair imitation of Carney apples.

Out side of that it could also be the humidity in your kitchen. While in real hot, dry areas your inside humidity when using AC can rival the Sahara, in humid areas you could be running way too high for hard candies. Try making some barley sticks out of a hard candy recipe and set them out on a counter (hopefully high enough to keep soon to be sticky fingers out :D) and check the next day. If you have sticky flat candy it's the humidity.

Hope this helps,
Jim
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post #7 of 10
9/27/07 at 6:40am
Thread Starter 
Thanks Drac! I would put money the humidity had a lot to do with it. I live in northeastern Indiana and except in winter, it's always humid! It was really cloudy Monday afternoon, Tuesday, and started raining Tuesday night into today. I did find a recipe without Red Hots and thought I'd give it a go. Now I know to keep an eye on the weather forecasts for a not so humid day! That'll be a good project for a cold day when I have to boil water to try and get the humidity up to comfortable levels.
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post #8 of 10
9/27/07 at 6:48am
By the way the best way to deal with candy sticking is to put them on a lubed cookie/sheet pan. Pan will work but it adds a little but of an off flavor. If you have a health/gourmet food store in your area you can look for almond oil. I've used it when making candies and it is a very sweet oil that doesn't add any off flavor to the candies.

Jim


Edit: The apples still won't last real long time due to the moisture in the fruit.
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post #9 of 10
9/27/07 at 6:59am
Thread Starter 
One of the outlets may have it. There is a Cooks Outlet and Kitchen outlet about 30 miles from me and I saw a lot of items in those stores that I don't normally see in my regular stores. Would unsalted butter work as well?

If they are edible, those apples won't make it a day, possibly two. lol My kids will eat them but they couldn't because their teeth were sticking together.
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post #10 of 10
9/27/07 at 7:15am
I'd use neutral oil like canola instead of butter.

If you want to have a bit of fun you can still roll the apples in the Red Hots just before they set completely or crusted cinnamon candies from Wal-Mart.

Jim
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