The Pinterest experience: No mess caramel apples

From one Pinterest lover to another: Do you ever wonder what some of those seemingly perfect Pinterest recipes, tips and tricks would really look like made in the real world by a real girl?

Lucky for you, I love a good adventure and I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. I’ll be here to test some of the world’s most revered pins to see whether they are worth your time or if they end up a big old mess.

This week’s experiment? No mess caramel apple slices.

We’ve all seen the pins; filling hallowed out apples with caramel and then slicing them up once they caramel has set.

They look like an ingenious idea to keep your hands free of sticky caramel while enjoying the beloved juxtaposition of tart apples and sweet caramel.

Are they really that simple to make though? I decided to find out with my own no mess caramel apple experiment.

Ingredients:

I decided to make my own caramel made out of brown sugar, half and half, vanilla extract, butter and salt because I was feeling particularly adventurous this weekend to test out this popular pin.

Directions:

1. First make the caramel so that it thickens while you hollow out the apples. Then combine a cup of brown sugar, a pinch of salt, and four tablespoons of butter together in a bowl.

2. Next measure out 1/2 cup of half and half and a tablespoon of vanilla extract.

3. After everything is measured out, combine all the caramel ingredients in a saucepan and set the heat to medium low.

To thicken the caramel, gently stir for about seven minutes until all the ingredients are combined and the sauce begins to thicken. After this turn off the heat and set the pan aside to let the caramel cool and continue to thicken.

4. While the caramel was cooling I grabbed my cutting board, the apples and the melon baller and began to go to work hollowing out the apples.

 

5. I found it easiest to start at the top where the stem is to make the initial scoop. Scoop the core and seeds out and then systematically do the same to the other four apples.

6. Once all the apples are hollowed out, carefully pour the caramel into the apples one by one.

7. After all the apples are filled with caramel, pull out an old cupcake tray and stick the apples in some of the cupcake slots so they won’t tip over in the fridge.

8. Lastly, put the caramel apples in the fridge overnight to let them set. In the morning I excitedly went to my fridge to see how they were doing…

I quickly learned that the juice from the apples apparently made it difficult for the caramel to consistently set.

So, I decided to salvage what I could and drained some of the caramel out of the apples before slicing them open.  Otherwise, I knew I’d have a big sticky mess on my hands.

The end result was that they were still pretty tasty, although a lot messier. I ended up dumping out a lot of the caramel I made which was slightly disappointing just because I was so excited that I had taken the time to make my own caramel.

Though they were good, they certainly didn’t turn out like the photos on Pinterest.

If any of you were thinking about having caramel apples this fall, I would recommend sticking to regular caramel apples because the “no mess” caramel apples ended up being a lot messier.

With that said, this was a pretty fun experiment to try and eating the caramel apple was still enjoyable.