DIY Caramel Apple

Well if you know me, you know I love chocolate. A bonus, is taking something healthy (apple) and making it unhealthy (chocolate/carmel apple) !

Between these things and my love for everything that has anything to do with fall, comes one of the best ideas I've ever had!

I love chocolate/carmel covered apples! I usually get them at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, but we do not have one of those anywhere near where I live. So I thought...."it can't be THAT hard...right?"

Actually, it isn't hard, but it is messy and I would do it a lot differently than I actually did it....so here it is.....a story of my mess....but man did they taste good!!!!!

First, I collected the main ingredients:

Caramel squares (hindsight, I wouldn't get the individually wrapped ones)

Apples

Those are the makings of a caramel apple, but I wanted more...so I just decided what other ingredients I wanted on mine:

Pecans

Milk Chocolate

White Chocolate

Dark Chocolate

Oreos

Then I stuck my apples with these kabob sticks. Some people use craft sticks, but I had these on hand, so I used them. I would imagine that craft sticks work better because they are thicker and shorter to the apple. These sometimes got away from me because they were not really sturdy.

Before I started melting my caramel. I made sure all of my other ingredients were ready. So I chopped up my oreos so they would be crumbly, and chopped up my pecans so I could roll my apple in them.

I had read to heat the caramel on medium, but mine started to burn. So I would advise you start it on low, at least until most of the chunks have softened to melt, then turn it up. Keep an eye on it the whole time and stir continuously!

Again, hindsight, I did not let my caramel get hot enough so that it was not so thick!! So make sure you get it hot enough where it thins out. It will make dipping your apple in way easier and eating it way more enjoyable! :)

I have no pictures of dipping my apples, it was a scary enough process as it was, much more with only one hand! So basically, I just took one apple at a time and dipped and rolled it in the caramel. I scraped the bottom of the apple on the pan to scrape off the extra caramel.

**IMPORTANT** If you are going to roll your apple in anything (in my case, nuts and oreo crumbs) you need to do it right after you dip it. I dipped all of my apples, then tried to roll them, but they weren't sticky anymore. I should have dipped one, then rolled it in nuts/oreos, then set it aside and started another one.

Instead I had to slather on extra fresh caramel at the bottom to get my oreos and pecans to stick! (MESS MESS MESS!)

Now comes the fun part of drenching them in every kind of chocolate imaginable!!!

So I took my chocolate chips and chocolate bars and melted them all in separate mugs. Trying to figure out a way to get this "drizzle" effect on my apple, I decided to then pour the melted chocolate into zip lock bags. Then I cut the tiniest piece off the bottom corner of the bag, so that I could sort of decorate with the melted chocolate.

I did it with the dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate. I just took the apple, held it, started at one spot and worked my way all around the apple.