Old-Fashioned Candy Apples

  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • ½ cup light corn syrup
  • ¼ cup water
  • Red food colouring
  • ½ tsp. cinnamon flavouring
  • 12 red apples
  • 12 popsicle sticks or skewers

Cook granulated sugar, corn syrup and water in small saucepan, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved.
Continue cooking, without stirring, until the syrup is brittle when tested in cold water.
Remove syrup from heat and set immediately over hot water.
Add food colouring and flavouring and mix well.
Meanwhile, place a cake rack over an empty large bowl (this will be used as an apple drying rack).
Insert the popsicle sticks or skewers intthe blossom end of the apples.
Hold each apple by the skewer and plunge intthe hot syrup.
Pull it out quickly and twirl it until the syrup is spread smoothly over the apple.
Place apple ontrack, skewer end down, which will allow the apple tharden without touching anything else.
Make and serve on the same day.

Did You Know?

Apples float in water because 25% of their volume is made up of air pockets found between cells.
An average apple contains 4 to 5 grams of fibre — more than a bowl of most cold breakfast cereals!
Two pounds of apples make one 9 inch apple pie.
Apples bruise easier than eggs break!
The largest continuous apple peel was 172 feet, 4 inches long and was created by Kathy Madison in Rochester, NY in 1976.

Apples are members of the rose family (who knew??).
Archeologists have discovered evidence that humans have been eating apples since at least 6500BC.
China is the world’s largest apple producer, growing more than 7 times the number of apples of the US and Canada combined.
The Halloween game of bobbing for apples is said to have originated from an ancient harvest ritual in honour of the Roman goddess Pomona.
Apples ripen 6 to 10 times faster at room temperature than if kept in the refrigerator.
There are more than 7500 varieties of apples grown worldwide.
In medieval times sailors were given apple cider before a long voyage to help guard against scurvy.