Homemade Toffee Apples

Today in England we celebrate Bonfire Night. For the last few years, I've been at university and I'd go to the local rugby clubs bonfire and fireworks display. This year having now graduated I'm back at home and none of my friends are going to any events and my brother would usually be here to light fireworks, but he's on holiday in Australia (So jealous!). To avoid getting bored and missing uni too much, I decided to have a go at making some toffee apples which are traditionally associated with bonfire night. This post will be another step-by-step style post so you can all have a go at making them, too!  

There were lots of recipes online, but they all included vinegar as a ingredient and I hate vinegar to the point were the smell of it makes me feel sick! So here's the recipe I decided to use. I only wanted to make 4 toffee apples so I reduced the amounts to suit me and I used red apples instead of green, which are usually used because I prefer red apples :) Here are the ingredients I used: 

 Toffee Apple Ingredients

100g caster sugar

90g golden syrup

90ml water 

4 Apples 

Lollipop sticks

(optional) 2 drops of red food colouring 

- Firstly, lightly grease a baking tray to place your apples into. This should ensure that your toffee apples will not stick to the tray and can be easily removed after the toffee has set. Stick the lollipop sticks into your apples and place onto the baking tray in preparation.

- Use a medium sized saucepan to make your toffee in and heat the hob to a medium-high temperature. Add the sugar, golden syrup & water into the saucepan and keep stirring the mixture throughout the entire cooking process otherwise the toffee will stick to the bottom and burn.   

- The whole cooking process takes approx. 5 minutes so long as your hob is at the right temperature. Keeping stirring until the mixture starts to simmer and become darker in colour. You need to continue stirring for around 2 minutes at this point. 

- The recipe online mentioned a method to help you check if your toffee is ready. Drop a little of the toffee into a cup of cold water. If the toffee is ready to cover your apples, when added to the water it will immediately harden, forming 'hard, brittle threads'. 

- When this occurs, your toffee is ready. Take it off the hob and mix in any food colouring you wish to add. You have to be quick with the next stage as the toffee will begin to set as soon as it is removed from the heat source.

- Dip each apple into the mixture individually and twist around making sure the apple is covered in toffee. Then place onto the baking tray to set. As I choose to use red apples which are slightly bigger than green, I decided to make another batch of toffee so I could completely coat my apples with toffee. 

- I left my toffee apples to set for 20-30 minutes before adding the chocolate. I decided to use caramac bars to keep with the caramel/toffee theme. I melted the caramac chocolate in the microwave for 1 minute and 15 seconds but kept stopping it to stir the chocolate throughout this time so the chocolate didn't burn. 

- When the chocolate was ready, I removed the toffee apples from the baking tray. I had to use a knife to seperate the apples because the toffee had run into the bottom of the baking tray and joined all my apples together! Then, I drizzled the chocolate all over the toffee apples and placed them on a plate. Lastly, I popped them in the fridge to help the chocolate set. 

 

  

I really enjoyed making the toffee apples, even though it was a little fiddly and they have turned out very messy! haha that's the point of home baking though, right? They look kinda 'rustic' and traditional :) 

♥

Who else has made toffee apples? or did you bake something else? 

Also, what's everyone doing to celebrate bonfire night? 

I can hear fireworks popping and banging in the distance as I type out this post :)