Pet & Animal: How to Make Chocolate Apples

Friday, 20 November 2015

How to Make Chocolate Apples

Chocolate apples are a delicious snack for a wide variety of occasions. You can whip them up for a quick after-school snack for kids, or gussy them up with expensive chocolate for desert after a dinner party. These are delicious whether you use apple slices or whole apples!

Steps

Making Chocolate-Drizzled Apple Slices

Mix the dry ingredients for the chocolate sauce.^[1] Combine 3/4 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons of all purpose flour, and 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder in a bowl. Mix them together with a fork or whisk to combine them evenly and remove any lumps there might have been.
Combine wet ingredients for chocolate sauce over heat. Bring a saucepan up to medium heat, then add 1 1/4 cups of milk, 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, and 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract. Stir the ingredients until the butter has melted completely.
- Add more vanilla extract for stronger flavor, but don’t go overboard!
Add the dry ingredients a small portion at a time. If you try to dump all the dry ingredients into the saucepan at once, you’ll have a flour-bomb. Instead, add the dry ingredients little by little, whisking them into the wet ingredients to even out any lumps.
Increase heat to medium-high and simmer. Keep stirring the sauce to keep it from burning over the higher heat. After about five to six minutes, turn off the heat completely and add a pinch of salt to add depth to the flavor.^[2]
Crush the candy canes into powder. There are many ways you can do this, so use whatever is handy in your kitchen.
- The most obvious method would be to use a mortar and pestle. Snap the candy into smaller, more manageable pieces, and put them in the mortar a few at a time. Use the pestles to grind the candy down into a powder or small shards — whichever you prefer.
- You can also use a hammer or meat tenderizer. Place the candy cane in a sealable plastic bag, snapping it into smaller pieces to fit if needed. Place the bag on a stable surfaces, then pound at the candy with the hammer or meat tenderizer until it reaches the texture you prefer.
- Use whatever you can find around the house. Be creative, but be safe.
Peel and core your apples. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the outer skin from the apple, being careful not to cut your fingers in the process. Stand the apples up, then, using a sharp knife, slice down along the edges of the core to remove the edible flesh of the apple from the inedible core. Cut the edible flesh into smaller slices as you see fit.
Top the apple slices with chocolate sauce and crushed candy cane. Lay them out either on a large plate or over a length of tin foil, if you want to avoid the extra dishes. You can finish your chocolate apples any way you like. Some choices might include:
- Dip the entire apple slice in chocolate sauce, or dip only half the slice.
- Use a spoon to drizzle chocolate sauce lightly over the apple slices. Wag a spoonful of sauce quickly back and forth, allowing the chocolate to drizzle down lightly over the apple slices.
- Top them with the crushed candy, letting the sauce work as an adhesive.
- Put out a bowl of chocolate sauce and a bowl of crushed peppermint, allowing your guests to dip and sprinkle themselves, deciding how much garnish they want for their apples.
- Refrigerating them before serving them sets the chocolate a little bit, which some people prefer.

Making Whole Chocolate-Dipped Apples on a Stick

Wash and dry your apples. You can use whichever type of apple you like, but the tartness of Granny smith apples goes well with the sweetness of chocolate. Remove any produce stickers that might be on the apples’ skin, then rinse them under water to remove any chemicals or germs that might be on the surface. Dry them with a clean towel.
Push a wooden skewer into the core of each apple. This will allow you to eat the apple like a lollipop once it’s been dipped in chocolate. You may have to press firmly, but you should be able to ease a stick into the apple fairly easily.
Cut 16 ounces of chocolate into small pieces. If you can find good quality chocolate in chocolate chip form, skip this step. However, if you bought a bar of chocolate, you’ll need to cut it up into smaller pieces. If you bought a chocolate bar that snaps easily into bite-sized pieces, break it up along the suggested lines. If it’s a solid bar, use a sharp knife to break the chocolate bar down into very small chunks.
- If the pre-portioned pieces of chocolate from your bar are too large, run your knife through those, too.
- The smaller the pieces, the more quickly and easily the chocolate will melt down into a sauce.
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler.^[3] If you try to melt chocolate over high heat too quickly, you might burn the chocolate and ruin your whole sauce. To guard against that, use the double boiler method to steam the chocolate gently from below, warming it evenly and preventing it from burning. To create a double boiler, you’ll need a large saucepan; a double boiler pan that fits over the saucepan, but does not touch the bottom of it; and a stirrer.
- Fill the bottom of the large saucepan with water, making sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the double boiler pan when it’s in place.
- Place the saucepan, water, and double boiler pan combination over medium-low heat on the stove.
- Place the chocolate pieces in the double boiler pan.
- As the steam from the hot water rises up to the double boiler pan, the chocolate will begin to slowly melt.
- Stir the chocolate to speed up the melting process and ensure an even texture to the sauce.
- When the chocolate has melted through, turn off the heat source.
Dip the apples in the melted chocolate. Hold each apple by the skewer, and dip it into the chocolate in the double boiler pan. Roll it around to make sure that the apple is completely covered by chocolate sauce.
Garnish the apples. If you want to add any other toppings to the chocolate apples, do it immediately after rolling the apple in the chocolate sauce, while it’s still wet. You can top the apple with anything that strikes your fancy. Some common toppings include chopped hazelnuts, sprinkles, crushed candy canes, and so on. You can dip the apple into a bowl of the topping, or you can sprinkle the topping over the apple.
Place dipped apples on wax paper and refrigerate to harden. Place a sheet of wax paper over a cookie pan, then place each apple upside down on the wax paper. The skewer should be sticking up toward the sky. Place the cookie pan in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes to allow the chocolate to harden once more, then you’re ready to serve your chocolate apples!