Berry Caramel Apple

After making my cereal marshmallow caramel apple, I thought it would be fun to try out some more combinations. I saw some freeze-dried raspberries and decided to combine those with the vanilla candy coating on a caramel apple to see how it would turn out and it is delicious! You can try this with any combination of freeze-dried fruit you like. So far I've only tried raspberry and raspberry + strawberry but they both tasted great and I'd love to try more flavors and combinations!

This apple is made exactly the same as the marshmallow one linked above except you need to prep the freeze-dried fruit a little.

Instructable 316

I'm going to talk about making just 1 apple, but you can easily increase all the ingredients to make more.

Ingredients and Supplies:

• Granny Smith Apple
• about 2.2oz of Caramel per apple
• about 1tsp of Water for the caramel if you are using packaged caramels
• a few Marshmallows - (optional) this is to help the caramel stick to the apple
• 2oz Vanilla Candy Coating per apple - or white chocolate chips
• about .6oz worth or half a (1.2oz) package of Freeze-Dried Fruit - I made one apple with just raspberry and tried another with raspberry and strawberry
• Popsicle Stick - or actual apple sticks
• Parchment Paper

There aren't necessarily any special utensils used for making these except for what's mentioned. You'll mostly need bowls, plates, spoons, knives, normal things. The only thing I want to recommend is any bowls you used be small (if you are only making 1 or 2 apples) and be nice and curved (not like a ramekin). This will make it easier to roll and coat your apples.

Any Amazon links are Amazon Associates links.

Removing the wax coating on an apple will make the caramel stick so much easier.

The method I like to use is, get some water boiling and then turn it off. You can let it cool a little and then carefully dunk the apple in. Roll it around but don't let it be in there for more than 10 seconds.

Quickly move it to a rough towel and rub the skin to get the wax off. Do this right away before the wax cools again.

Remove the stem and stick in a popsicle stick so it sticks in about 1/4 or 1/2 of the way. You wan it sturdy. It gets heavier the more you add to the apple.

Caramel time! Prep by having a plate with a piece of parchment paper ready.

Mix up your caramel, marshmallows, and water. DO NOT forget the water, it will make the caramel harden to a consistency that you can't bite through.

(I am coating an apple for myself and my husband so I have twice the amounts I listed in the supplies.)

Melt the caramel in the microwave. I only do this in about 30-second increments and it will only take a couple of times with this small amount.

Once melted, roll your apple in the caramel. I have a hard time coating the whole thing this way so I use a knife to spread it along the apple especially the top area around the stick.

Using your knife, scrape the bottom of the apple and place it on a piece of parchment paper.

You can set this in the fridge or just aside. You want the caramel to firm up a bit before you move on.

Once the caramel is firm enough that it isn't sticking to the parchment paper you can get ready for the next step.

The first thing you want to do is prep the freeze-dried fruit pieces. If they are too big, it will be harder to get them to stick to the apple and you won't get good coverage. I would say you want to break them down to about 1/4" pieces if that makes sense. If you get them down to dust, you will get very good coverage, but it won't necessarily look as nice. I have a couple of different coverages in the final step you can check out, but just make sure you at least break them up a little.

Fill a bowl with broken up pieces so you have about .6oz as I mentioned earlier. It is better to be prepared with more than less.

Now that you are ready, heat up your vanilla candy coating until melted. Don't go overboard. Again, I did this in about 30-second increments, and when it comes up to make sure to mix as much as you can because even if it doesn't look melted, it can already be melted enough and just need stirring.

Once ready, coat the apple. Use a knife or spoon as needed to get good coverage.

Go right from the coating to the broken freeze-dried fruit bits. You can see with this apple I didn't really have them broken up as much as I would like, but it turned out all right.

I "rolled" the apple in the freeze-dried bits the best I could and then just put on pieces after. I gently pushed the pieces into the candy coating as well to make sure they would stick.

This will take a bit longer than the caramel to set, so I would suggest sticking it in the fridge so you don't bump it and wreak it.

Once it's all firm, it's time to cut and serve!

Once it is firm, if you don't want to eat it yet, I recommend wrapping it up and keeping it in the fridge. When you are ready to eat, take it out a little ahead of time so it isn't super cold when you eat it.

To serve, I recommend cutting it into 9 pieces (including the core/stick) by making two cuts each direction. I actually show this in the marshmallow caramel apple Instructable. It's the easiest way to eat and great for sharing.

I'm not sure how long these will keep. I usually only make one at a time, and when I made two at a time, the second was eaten about two days later.

Even if you cut the apple up you can store it just try to put the pieces together the best you can and wrap it. The pieces touching each other will help preserve them and prevent them from getting too brown, but they will discolor at least a little.

Here is a look at the raspberry apple, Picture 3 and 4

and the two raspberry + strawberry apples, Picture 1 and 2

With the raspberry and strawberry apples, I had a lot of pieces from the bottom of the bag so they were really ground up and you can see it's pretty significant coverage. So in the end, do it the way you like best.

Cereal Marshmallow Caramel Apple - I love how colorful and sweet these are!

Candy Bar Caramel Apple - Great use for leftover Halloween candy.

Red Hot Caramel Apple - Fun combination of red hot cinnamon and chocolate!