Can Our Founder Fix Caramel Apples? A Highly-Scientific Investigation

Welcome to the latest edition of Food52 Founder Amanda Hesser’s weekly newsletter, Hey there, it’s Amanda, packed with food, travel, and shopping tips, Food52 doings, and other matters that catch her eye. Get inspired—sign up here for her emails.

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This week, let’s get right to all the things happening around Food52, and save my cooking problems for the end of the email.

I saw this salad dressing bottle at a recent product review meeting and thought, Now this is the kind of product our community will love. We're launching it this week, and I hope you agree!

There are cool things happening with cement these days, including these heated outdoor benches. Patrick Cain, an environmentally focused home company, has designed a series of beautiful catchalls – for everything from fruit to your keys. I like this hefty one.

It’s mug season, and this year we have a self-heating mug that you can keep on your desk.

César and Bodega Bakes author Paola Velez collaborated on a video of Paola’s homemade Cosmic Whoopie Pies. It’s a little unhinged and madcap – I think you’ll like it.

Hosting season has begun, and we’ve got you covered with hosting advice and 25% off in our Shop. If you're a member of The Table, you've already heard. Everyone else, prep your carts for tomorrow so you can stock up on platters, napkins, and brandy glasses (for yourself, after your guests have left and you’re sitting on the sofa scrolling IG).

Speaking of hosting season, Jessie Sheehan stopped by to show us this no-recipe recipe that people lost their minds about on social.

Over lunch recently, my husband Tad and I wondered if foods from our childhood would taste as great as we remembered them. Would the cinnamon monkey bread that his mom picked up from Zahn’s in Buffalo be as gooey and fragrant? Would my grandmother’s dried beef gravy be as smoky and salty?

“Or how about a candied apple?” Tad asked.

That snapped me out of the dreamscape. I hate candied apples—the hard candy coating makes it feel like you’re chewing on glass and sugar water. “Ok, how about a caramel apple?” he said.

Caramel apples are no better–the crisp apple ruins the buttery texture of the caramel. But apples and caramel pair well when both are cooked, so I wondered if I could fix the caramel apple once and for all for children everywhere!

My hopes were lofty. The results were iffy. Bakers, I need your help!

I put two Empires and two Honeycrisp-like apples in an oval baking dish, spooned over a couple of tablespoons of honey, covered the base of the pan with water, and then covered the dish with foil. I roasted the apples at 350 F for 30 minutes, then I bumped the heat to 375 F and roasted them uncovered for another 10. You can baste them a couple of times with the honey water in the pan; I did. I cooked them this way because I wanted the honey to create a sticky glaze on the apples to help the caramel adhere.

The Empires were a dumb idea–they never hold their shape when cooked, and so the skins split and the flesh got fluffy. The Honeycrisps were better behaved: they remained intact.

I remembered that we had a miso caramel recipe on site. I liked the idea of a salty, dark caramel and one that didn’t require a candy thermometer. I stuck thick skewers into the core and rolled the apples in the caramel, tilting the pan on its side so I could submerge the apples. I dipped each apple three times, and then put it on parchment. The roasted apple’s flavor was concentrated and the skins were softened–but the caramel blanketed it all loosely and it never firmed up. These apples are probably better enjoyed with a fork and knife than eaten off a stick. So, not really the success I was looking for.

Batch 1 kept me up at night, worrying that people would be unhappy that the caramel wasn’t chewy. So I made a batch using a traditional caramel with corn syrup and butter. The caramel coated the apples thickly and beautifully, and they tasted great warm – but by morning they looked god-awful:

My next plan is to pour the caramel into a parchment-lined muffin tin and press the roasted apples into it to let it set, but it may have the same hydration issue. If you have suggestions for how to improve Caramel Apples 2.0, send them my way and I’ll follow up in a few newsletters from now, assuming I’ve emerged from my caramel funk. I’m at [email protected]

This is the miso caramel—doubling it gives you enough caramel for four apples.

This is the pan I used for roasting the apples:

Have a better week than I’m having!

Amanda