As you may recall, we had a bumper crop of perfectly beautiful apples plagued neither by worms or birds and very few earwigs or other insects. The @#$%^ (remember, that stands for darling in this family-friendly blog) deer came down and robbed half a dozen last night. I harvested the last of them this morning to avoid losing any more to the deer, who clearly didn’t appreciate them anyway since they only took one bite out of each and then moved onto the tomatoes.
Last month, before harvesting any of these Liberty apples, I googled for the favored ways to enjoy this variety. We already knew we didn’t like them freeze-dried, having processed a few that way two years earlier. (We didn’t get a single apple off any of our trees last year.) A couple of sources advised that Liberty apples made the best applesauce. More on that in another post. Marissa at Pinch and Swirl indicated that her family had gotten some small Liberty apples as part of their CSA share, and that she dipped them in caramel.
That sounded like a pure genius way of using the small apples, along with being quite tasty. The simple ingredient list wasn’t entirely food storage-friendly. Could it be tweaked?
Her original recipe:
Salted Caramel Apples
6 small apples, cold and unwaxed
6 lollipop sticks*
1 cup heavy whipping cream
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Remove the stem from the apples and push one lollipop stick down into the apple core. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Fill a large bowl halfway with ice water and set aside.
In a small, heavy saucepan, bring the cream and salt to a simmer. Stir in the corn syrup, heat to boiling, and cook, stirring constantly, for 20 or so minutes until the mixture reaches 250°F* (firm ball stage). Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla, and set the saucepan in the ice water. Continue stirring until the caramel starts to thicken. If you allow the caramel to thicken too much, just place it back on the heat and stir until it softens.
Tilt the saucepan and, holding each apple by the stick, dip it in the caramel, tilting and twisting until the apple is coated. Set it on the parchment and repeat with the remaining apples.
Let set at room temperature.
Notes.
*Or Popsicle sticks. I didn’t have those either, so I used tongue depressors.
*At high altitudes, you’ll have to adjust the temperature. I waited until the caramel reached 240°F here at 6000 ft.
Family reviews: We all thought this caramel wasn’t quite sweet enough; we’re probably too accustomed to the super sweet caramel apples sold at Apple Hill. However, the next day I proceeded to eat all the apples and remaining caramel drips.
Now, I have no confidence that I will be able to obtain fresh cream if society collapses completely. Any cream will likely need to be set aside for children. So I had to wonder if Media Crema plus 1 tablespoon of coconut oil could be substituted for the heavy cream.
As I was preparing the two recipes side-by-side, it was easy to note the obvious differences between them. The Media Crema recipe didn’t get anywhere near as frothy as the fresh cream version. It also started off considerably darker. However, those were the only two differences.
As far as taste goes, the two were virtually indistinguishable. So that’s a win for sure.
However, I didn’t really like the idea of having to use up precious Media Crema in this way. I thought I ought to be able to make a good caramel dip using only long-term storage foods.
And so I found a recipe that called for butter and sweetened condensed milk. I adjusted it to use coconut oil and powdered milk.
Caramel Apples with Long-Term Food-Storage Ingredients
½ cup powdered milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup coconut oil
½ cup corn syrup
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 small apples and Popsicle sticks
In a heavy saucepan, combine all the dry ingredients. Stir in the coconut oil, corn syrup, and water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook and stir until the mixture reaches 250°F (firm ball stage), or for a softer caramel cook to a few degrees less. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla extract.
Let cool several minutes. Dip each apple into the warm mixture, turning to coat evenly.
Family reviews: As compared to the original caramel sauce, this one is a little grainy, but it won’t bother any but the most finicky caramel apple aficionados. However, using only coconut oil without any butter meant that the caramel pretty much slipped right off the apples, leaving behind only the thinnest coating. And I tried dipping again when the caramel cooled even more, without success. So I was pretty disappointed with that.
But the next day, I proceeded to eat those apples (remember, they were pretty small), and I realized that the thin coating was still quite acceptable—there was a little bit of added sweetness, but a lot fewer calories. And that recipe would cover a lot more apples. So it was kind of a win after all.
If
we have a choice, we prefer the heavy cream/Media Crema caramel sauce
options. If not, we’ll happily use the
long-term food storage ingredients.
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