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Taffy Apples
North, south, east and west candied apples are a Camp Fire stunt that has become traditional: Here's a recipe for 12 apples: 1/2 POUND BUTTER 12 APPLES I POUND SUGAR I SMALL CAN KARO BLUE LABEL CORN SYRUP Melt the butter in the kettle over the fire. Add syrup and sugar in the order named. Cook until a drop in cold water will make a hard ball. Remove the kettle from the fire. Have the apples speared on sharpened sticks. Each girl dips hers into the syrup. Twirl the stick around and around to get the taffy hardened without its dripping off the apple. Be careful of yourself and your neighbors during this twirling process-hot taffy burns like fury. The girls at camp say, "Twirl for a minute or two, then eat without further ado." But we say, be sure the taffy has cooled.
In cooking the syrup, use a small, deep pot rather than a large shallow one, so that the syrup mixture will be deep enough to cover the apples. Dip the apples quickly one after the other , so that all may be dipped before the syrup cools.
Fruit coloring or small red candies (cinnamon drops) may be used to give the apples a rosy glow. Another recipe which has been used with success is: 2 CUPS SUGAR 1/4 CUP WATER 1/2 CUP KARO SYRUP 12 APPLES Boil until syrup makes a hard ball and proceed as above.
A campfire candy-apple recipe from a corn syrup promotional booklet. The one thing to fix before you start is the sugar stage, because "hard ball" gives a chewy taffy coat rather than the glassy shell most people now expect.
- Hard ball vs. hard crackHard ball is 250-265F: the coating stays taffy-like and pulls off in strings, which is what the name promises. If you want the brittle, shatter-when-bitten shell of a modern candy apple, take the syrup to hard crack, 300-310F. Use a candy thermometer and treat the cold-water test as a backup.
- Karo Blue LabelKaro of this period was sold under several coloured labels, and light corn syrup is the usual modern stand-in; which label corresponded to which syrup is not something the recipe tells us. The can size is not stated either, and Karo's smaller retail tins of the era ran to a pound or more.
- Butter quantityHalf a pound is two sticks, 8 oz. That is a great deal of fat for a pound of sugar and it produces a soft butterscotch taffy rather than a clear candy coating. The second recipe, with water instead of butter, is the one that behaves like a conventional candy apple.
- Prepare the apples firstSupermarket apples are waxed and the coating will slide straight off. Scrub them in hot water, dry thoroughly, pull the stems, and drive in the sticks before the syrup goes on the heat. Any moisture on the skin will make the taffy sag.
- Choose a firm, tart appleGranny Smith, Braeburn or a similar dense variety holds up under hot syrup. Mealy apples collapse and steam under the coating.
- Pot shapeThe advice about a small deep pot is sound, but use one at least three times the depth of the syrup: butter and sugar foam up hard when they hit temperature.
- CoolingSet the dipped apples on buttered parchment or a silicone mat rather than eating them off the stick immediately. Sugar at 250F and above causes serious burns and clings to skin; the booklet's own warning is the important line in the recipe.
- YieldTwelve apples, and the syrup sets fast, so line up all twelve before you start dipping. Reheat gently if it stiffens partway through.