recipe: fancy caramel apples.

okay, it's totally misleading to call this a recipe. because let's be honest, this is not anything revolutionary in the world of food. this is good, old, traditional, sticky fun, and most people have made caramel apples before. but i wanted to share the way i fancied mine up this year, and if it inspires you to try some of your own combos, all the better! and who couldn't use more sweetness in their life on halloween?remember when i told you that my basic heart was breaking because i hadn't done a lot of fall things this year? and that i set a goal to do one festive thing last week? you're looking at festive thing #1. fancy caramel apples. i got the idea after spending too much time on pinterest while nursing, and ended up pinning a ridiculous amount of dressed up caramel apples. it occurred to me that with a few ingredients and a tiny bit of luck with nap timing, i might actually be able to do this. the stars aligned last week, and so fancy caramel apple time it was!i used a bag of caramel pieces, the kind that drive you crazy to unwrap (especially when you're racing against nap time) and just followed the recipe on the bag...melt the caramel plus two tablespoons of water in a double boiler or bowl over a pot of a water until it's smooth, then dip the apples in the caramel, place on a buttered plate and refrigerate until set!the fancy part comes in once you've dipped the caramels. it's your chance to get creative and really bring our your inner martha stewart. for my fancy apples, i decided to do a different ingredient twist on each apple. one i left as a plain caramel apple, with just a bit of sea salt added (not pictured because i ate it before i could take a photo). one i rolled in mini chocolate chips. one i rolled in heath bar pieces. then i got really crazy and made chocolate-dipped caramel apples with the last two by melting baker's chocolate and dipping the apple once the caramel was a bit set. i rolled one of the chocolate-dipped apples in crushed pretzels and the other in a mix of heath bar and mini chocolate chips. HEAVEN.here are some ideas of other ingredients to dip your caramel apples in:

• mini chocolate chips
• heath bar pieces
• m&ms
• crushed pretzels
• melted chocolate
• sea salt sprinkled over the caramel
• candy corn
• peanuts
• crushed walnuts
• sprinkles
• crushed oreos

i mean, the sky's the limit with these! i had to give a couple away, otherwise i would (and could) have eaten them all by myself before the week was over. that's just not a good idea when i'm bound to have all the leftover halloween candy to eat after today.now i just need to find time to watch hocus pocus tomorrow, and i'll consider this october successful!

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