Dessert Night--Caramel Apples

We have dessert night every Wednesday. By starting a dessert night we have cut back on the amount sweets eaten, I have lost a bit of weight ('cause I'm not sneaking sweets, I can usually hold out until Wednesday, thank you very much) and, maybe most importantly, the whining about dessert has almost entirely stopped! Anyone who dares to ask "Can I have dessert?" on any night but Wednesday will almost surely be answered with a, "It's not Wednesday, stupid!" from one of his brothers before Mom or Dad can say anything. Sure it's not exactly polite, but that's a different battle entirely. One thing at a time.

Wednesday this week we had caramel apples in celebration of Halloween. Colin has been asking me to make caramel apples for a while now. I was very proud of myself when I found the recipe online and followed it to make some lovely looking apples. Colin was very upset because he couldn't eat a crunchy chewy caramel apple with a loose tooth wriggling around in his head. Dad came to the rescue and pulled the loose tooth ensuring a happy ending for all.


If you want to try making caramel apples you can do a google search for recipes like I did, or you can click here for the recipe I used. It wasn't nearly so hard as I thought it would be. The only special equipment you will need is a candy thermometer. I think I bought mine at Target years ago, but you can buy them at most grocery stores. The other thing to know is this recipe makes a LOT of caramel so have a buttered dish ready to pour the extra into. After it cools you can cut it into pieces and wrap it up in wax paper, or if you are waayyy more coordinated than me you could use the extra to make chocolate turtles. As I ate my caramel apple I kept thinking how good this caramel would be in a turtle. Ummmm Yummy! I will have to remember to buy pecans next time we have this for dessert.

Oh, you don't know what a chocolate turtle is? You need caramel, pecan halves, chocolate, and some buttered tinfoil. Arrange four pecan halves on the buttered tin foil to form an X. These are the turtles feet, then spoon a big blob of melted caramel onto to the middle of the X. This is the turtles body. Then pour melted chocolate over everything. Chocolate turtles. Ummm Yummmm! Maybe I will make them for Christmas, then I can eat 1 (dozen) and give the rest away while I can still button my pants.