Caramel Apples-1; Me-0

This is a little late but as mentioned before, we were missing the USB cord that went to the camera. I went down last night to the handy dandy Best Buy and bought one so that I can get this blog rolling.

So before Halloween, the morning of to be exact, I wanted to make caramel apples. I hadn't done it before and I thought that they looked beautiful with the different toppings. I also had a recipe for caramel from scratch. Just wait until everyone knows that I did this from scratch...is what I was thinking but it turned terribly wrong as you will see. First I had this amazing recipe from Country Living and they also had a beautiful picture as well; sorry I didn't save it to show you.

Anyway the day started out great. I chopped up the oreos and put them in their own bowl, I poured the dry roasted, slightly salted peanuts into their bowl and the M&M's into their bowl.

Then I followed the recipe EXACT. It started to boil and I decided to take it off the stove top and add the remaining two ingredients. It was coming to a very nice color, toffee like is what the recipe said and look at this. Mmm, it also smells delicious.

So the recipe says it should have set up in about 6-8 minutes. Wrong; I did something wrong because it is not setting up. An hour and a half later after putting it into a new pan (so it wasn't still hot from the stove), the refrigerator and even the freezer I decided to test it on the apples because it really looked like it was ready. Wrong again; oh boy was I really wrong again.

By now I am "OVER IT"; I think I even said that out loud a few times. So frustrated and annoyed that I couldn't complete such a relatively simple task I decided that I wasn't going to try this again until next year and I would just use a bag of caramels with a little bit of milk, like my friend Jennifer. Hers turned out AMAZING! I'm jealous! What happened to mine, why are they so terrible?!?! I figured out a few days later after talking with my very knowledgeable and wonderful Grandmother that it was possible that the apples had a "waxy" coating. DUH, Cass! Of course they did; looking back I can tell you that since they were very shiny. So the solution you ask...well Grandmother says to dip the apples in boiling water for about 10-20 seconds (after you have already inserted the stick). Thanks Grandmother!! Next year: I will be prepared and have my game face on. This was a great lesson that not everything can be perfect and sometimes you just have to step away and come at it another time.