These Poison Apples are a fun and spooky way to dress up apples for Halloween - and they taste amazing!
A poison apple is a caramel apple dressed up for Halloween. They can even be included on a list of fun and cheap Halloween candy ideas! A candy apple looks amazing, and these, as they are dark, beautiful and kind of scary at the same time. But that's what this celebration is all about!
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🎃 Is there Halloween in Brazil?
Halloween has been slowly "imported" to Brazil over the last years. It is not a Holiday we celebrate as part of Brazilian culture. But over the last couple of years we've seen a steep increase in parties and all things related to it.
As we both have lived in the USA, we like to celebrate Halloween, and decorate our house. So this is why we decided to make these poison apples that turned out to be a huge success in our blog in Portuguese.
📋 Ingredients for Halloween apples
To make these homemade caramel apples, you will need:
- apples
- twigs or skewers
- sugar
- corn syrup
- gel food coloring
- water
- waxed paper
🍳 How to make candy apples
Making candy apples is not difficult. You will see by following this candy apple recipe that it is pretty straighforward.
The hardest part is to let the caramel get to the right temperature and have the right amount of caramel on the apples. Too much will accumulate at the bottom and too little will not look good.
Step by step instructions on how to make caramel apples:
- Wash apples under hot water using a cloth. Dry thourougly.
- Remove the stems and insert wooden skewers (or twigs) into the center of each apple.
- In a sauce pan add sugar, corn syrup, water and blue food coloring.
- Mix ingredients well, until sugar is dissolved. Secure candy thermometer to pan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Do not stir past this point.
- Meanwhile place the parchment paper on a baking sheet and grease it with a little bit of vegetable oil.
- After 15 to 20 minutes the caramel will be ready. The temperature must reach 300 degrees (hard crack). If you do not have a candy thermometer, drizzle some of it from a fork - if it hardens when falling, forming strands, it's done (see note 1 in recipe).
- Turn the heat off and dip the apples, one by one, in the caramel, tilting the pan and turning the apples so they get an even coating.
- Let excess caramel drip off, hold the apples upside down for some seconds (to avoid excess caramel on the bottom). Do this carefully as the caramel will be super hot.
- Place the apples on the prepared paper to cool.
- If the coating is too thin, dip apples once more and let cool again.
- See notes in recipe for darker apples, if the caramel hardens, and what to do with leftover caramel
🍏 What is the best apple for poison apples
The best apples to make these colored candy apples, or poison apples, are Granny Smith apples. They have a beautiful and mostly uniform color and their tartness go extremely well with the sweetness of the hard caramel.
Of course you could use any other apple as well but try to use apples that are firmer and not so sweet. I've also used Fuji and Gala apples, but the best, by far, are Granny Smith.
And they should be fresh too! Old apples will be mealy (not good to eat) or even if you just want them for the looks, the twigs may fall off when coating them, as they will have a soft interior.
⌛ Can I make ahead?
You could make them ahead, but as long as you can store them in an airtight container, or thoroughly wrapped in cellophane paper.
What happens if I don't? Moisture from the apples and the air will start to make the caramel runny.
I would not make them more than 2 days ahead because they are better fresh - the apples will taste better and the caramel will be harder.
🧺 How to store them
As I've said, you can store the apples in a large airtight container. The apples should not touch each other. If necessary, place a piece of waxed paper between them.
Or you can wrap them in cellophane paper in a way it gets to be airtight. This will help to keep their freshness.
🌡️ How to make it without a candy thermometer
There are two ways you can check the caramel without a thermometer:
- drizzle the candy with a fork - if it makes hard strands it is done or
- have a bowl of cold water by the stove and dip a metal spoon in the boiling sugar and then right away in the water. If it hardens (sometimes it will even crack), it is not sticky and can't be removed from spoon, it's ready.
🍎 Variations
The ways you can change these poison apples is to make them in different colors, or shades. Start with a lighter color (less food coloring) and then add more of it (or a darker color).
Start with a deep blue and then add some black food coloring to the caramel - watch as it will bubble a lot!
You will have a great looking blue candy apple and and then some darker ones, making a cute Halloween candy 🙂
Or make two different colors and dip one side of the apple in one color and the other in another color (or coat the whole apple with one color and then just half of it with another color).
If you want to make a Snow White poison apple, you can use green food coloring or make a classic Snow White apple by using red food coloring.
🧽 How to clean up caramel
When you're done making your Halloween candy apples, you'll have the most amazing candy apples, plus a pot and candy thermometer with a hard dark sugar coating.
The best, and quickest, way to clean it up is to fill the pot with water, put the candy thermometer and any other object you have used (spoon or fork) in it and bring to a boil. Let it boil for about 10 minutes and the caramel will dissolve.
Throw away water and proceed to wash everything as you would normally do.
📖 Recipe
Poison Apples
Equipment
- Candy thermometer
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup corn syrup
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/2 tsp blue gel food coloring
- 1/4 tsp black gel food coloring
- 6 large apples or 10 medium/small
- 6 wooden skewers or twigs or same number of apples
- waxed papper
- vegetable oil
Instructions
- Wash apples under hot water using a cloth. Dry thourougly.
- Remove the stems and insert wooden skewers (or twigs) into the center of each apple.
- In a sauce pan add sugar, corn syrup, water and blue food coloring.
- Mix ingredients well, until sugar is dissolved. Secure candy thermometer to pan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Do not stir past this point.
- Meanwhile place the parchment paper on a baking sheet and grease it with a little bit of vegetable oil.
- After 15 to 20 minutes the caramel will be ready. The temperature must reach 300 degrees (hard crack). If you do not have a candy thermometer, drizzle some of it from a fork - if it hardens when falling, forming strands, it's done (see note 1 bellow).
- Turn the heat off and dip the apples, one by one, in the caramel, tilting the pan and turning the apples so they get an even coating.
- Let excess caramel drip off, hold the apples upside down for some seconds (to avoid excess caramel on the bottom). Do this carefully as the caramel will be super hot.
- Place the apples on the prepared paper to cool.
- If the coating is too thin, dip apples once more and let cool again.
- See notes for darker apples, if the caramel hardens, and what to do with leftover caramel
Video
Notes
Nutrition
If you make this recipe, please let us now by tagging @travelcooktell on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
these are dope
These are fantastic! Thanks for such a detailed recipe. I made some as a test run and will be making more for Halloween 🎃
I made these last year and they were fantastic! Making them to sell at a craft fair for next weekend. Only one thing....these are candy apples, not caramel apples, lol. Thank you again for the great idea!!
Hi Jamie
Good to know you like them. I really like them too 😁
Thanks for letting me know about the candy/caramel thing!
Have a great sale!!
Possibly made them wrong but mine were not blue! They were some strange shade of dark red purple violet despite only adding in blue and a little super black food coloring? Cant figure out what I did? They looked good just not blue.
Are you supposed to use both the blue and black gel food color together? Or just add black if you need a deeper color? What type of apple works best? Granny Smith, Macintosh?
You should use both, 1/2 tsp blue gel food coloring and 1/4 tsp black gel food coloring.
So much easier than I feared! Made for grandkids for Halloween!!
Going to try old fashioned cinnamon red next time!
Hi Pam
Good to know! I think they must have loved them!
How can I wrap these individually to sell?
I don't see why not 🙂
Can I use craft twigs? I’m nervous about using twigs from my yard. The twigs really make the apple tho. They’re beautiful.
Hi Tina, I think you can! They are really beautiful 🙂
Where do you get the twigs?
Hi Diana, I got them talking a walk in my neighborhood.
Can you add the grape flavored jolly rancher’s candy to the mixture?
I think you can, but I'm not sure. Have you tried it?