Chocolate Caramel Apples

Well, every year my daughter wants to dip apples! I love making caramel apples with her but have never been a huge fan of eating them. I've tried a lot of different recipes and apples types but this year I think we finally nailed it!

The first thing I did differently this year was to use granny smith apples. They are not my favorite to snack on but when it comes to caramel apples, the crunchier the better I say! I use golden delicious for a lot of recipes but they are just too soft for dipping.

The second thing was that I dipped the whole thing in chocolate! If at first you don't like something, dip it chocolate, and try it again! :-) They tasted yummier and my daughter thought it was twice as fun to double dip them! Plus they look super fancy even though they are super easy!

Here's what I used this year:

10 granny smith apples
2 bags Kraft Caramels (they usually have these in the halloween candy section with the melting directions on the bag)
4 Tbls. water
10 sticks of some kind (I was thrown for a bit of a loop since they usually include the sticks in the caramel bag...but they weren't in there this year. I used some crafty popsicle sticks my daughter had!)
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup toasted coconut

So first toast the coconut. Funny story about toasted coconut...a few years ago I was making my first recipe with toasted coconut and I didn't know that you had to toast it yourself. So I looked and looked and couldn't find it! I finally asked a store employee where the toasted coconut was and she looked at me like an idiot (which I kind of was) but then she nicely explained how to toast it myself. It's kind of like walking into the store and asking where to buy toast or a baked potato or something!

Anyway, toast the coconut at 350 for about 10 min. Check it every 2 minutes and toast until it's the color you'd like! Next melt the caramel with water according to package directions. Wash and dry each apple thoroughly. Remove the stem and push a stick into the top of each apple. Dip each apple into caramel sauce until coated. Wipe the bottom of the apple and place on wax paper. Let sit about 10 minutes to set slightly. Meanwhile, melt chocolate chips and cream until smooth but not boiling. Dip each caramel apple into the chocolate. You can do a few different designs with the chocolate by dipping them only partially in the chocolate of drizzling the chocolate over them! You can see some of the designs we cam up with below! Just have fun with it! Allow the chocolate to cool on the apple for about 1 minute and then roll in toasted coconut immediately. Enjoy!