Jack Skellington Candy Apples

I think I must be fairly odd as Halloween doesn’t get me all that excited; I love carving pumpkins but other than that I’m always just way to pre-occupied with the thought of Christmas coming to really get into a spooky spirit. I do, however, love making Halloween-y themed food, so I thought it would be the perfect time to post my third candy apple post!

Jack Skellington Candy Apples

You’ll need 12-15 apples (I think green works best!), 5 cups of caster sugar and 1 1/2 cups of water, plus some black food colouring (gel or paste), lollipop sticks, and black and white chocolate or candy melts. You’ll also need a candy thermometer!

  • Start by mixing together the sugar and water in a saucepan, and get it boiling away. It needs to reach 150C, which will take a little while but you can use this time to get the apples cleaned and on their sticks.
  • Once the sugar hits temperature, stir in the black food colouring, dip the apples and swirl them around to cover in the candy, then place on a tray covered in greaseproof paper to set – which will happen quickly!

Now I can’t stress this enough: the sugar is HOT. We’re talking hotter than boiling water, so please please please be careful! This is definitely not an activity that children should be doing, even under supervision; its just not worth the risk of burning.

  • Once the candy has set hard, you can start melting the white chocolate, and either dip the apples into it or spoon it on, and pop these into the fridge to set.
  • When the white layer is hard, melt the black candy, and using a piping/ziploc bag with the corner cut off, pipe a spooky (or smiley!) face onto the apples and pop back in the fridge to let it set.

Jack Skellington Candy Apples

These can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature for up to a week, so you can get them ready a few days before its time to get spooky! And if Jack doesn’t take your fancy, why not try my original Poison Candy Apples?

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Baking Magic – Hunny Pot Candy Apples

I am always amazed with the candy apples you can buy in the Disney parks, and I love watching the cast members making them, so when I tried my hand at them at the beginning with last year with my Candy Poison Apples, I was so happy to find how easy they were, and decided to bring them back in this new series!

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Ok, so you’re gonna need: 12-15 medium sized green apples, 5 cups caster sugar, 1 cup water, white and yellow food colouring (optional), 300g milk chocolate and orange coloured chocolate or candy melts.

Equipment wise, you’ll need a candy thermometer, a saucepan and lollipop sticks

1. Mix together the sugar and water in a saucepan, and start to heat. Pop in the candy thermometer and let it bubble away – it’s got to reach 150C before its ready.

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2. While your sugar mix is cooking away, clean and de-stem the apples and push the lollipop sticks into the tops so they’re firmly in place.

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3. When you’re sugar is close to temperature, add the white food colouring to make the mix more opaque, then add yellow to give it a golden honey colour.

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4. Once it hits 150C, turn off the heat and remove the thermometer. Working quickly but carefully – this mix is HOT, please keep children away – dip the apples into the liquid sugar and swirl around to give it a good coating, then place them onto greaseproof paper. Its going to set hard pretty quickly, so if you’ve still got sugar left over once you’ve coated all your apples, pour it out into a little puddle on greaseproof paper and get your saucepan soaking in hot water to save yourself a tough cleaning job!

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5. Melt down the milk chocolate, then you can either dunk the apples or spoon the chocolate over them, and give them a little shake to get off the excess, then pop them in the fridge for a little while.

6. Once the chocolate has set, take them out of the fridge – otherwise the candy gets super sticky – and melt down the orange chocolate/candy melts. Pour this into a piping bag and get misspelling the word honey – otherwise Pooh might not know what it is!

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What’s your favourite candy apple design?

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Poison Candy Apples

I love Thursdays, they are, by far, the best day of my week.

That’s because Thursday is Disney day; the day I pick the girls up from school and we watch Disney movies until their mum picks them up after she finishes work, and we’ve been doing this every Thursday for over a year now. Thursday was also the day we left on our last Disney trip!

It’s also Foodie Thursday on LottieDoesDisney, yay!

As it’s Snow White week, for me there was really only one option to take on: the poison apple.

But I didn’t really fancy poisoning anyone, so I took inspiration from my trip to Disney World, where candy apples are available at most good snack places, and are total works of art! And cos I can’t pop across to the Magic Kingdom every time I fancy a sweet treat, I made my own:

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They were so quick and easy!

You’ll need:

12-15 medium sized apples (I prefer green for flavour and continuity with the film)

5 cups white sugar

1 1/2 cups water

1 tsp white food colouring (you can probably go without, the white just gives the candy its opaque quality)

Red food colouring – the amount depends entirely on the type of colouring you use

1tsp vanilla extract

White candy melts or white chocolate (a preference thing again, candy melts are less runny, but some people prefer the taste of white chocolate)

You’ll also need a candy thermometer, lollipop sticks and a piping bag (or ziploc bag with a corner cut off)

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In a big saucepan, mix together the sugar and water, and start boiling. Once its mixed up, you don’t need to worry about stirring, just pop in the candy thermometer and keep an eye on it!

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The sugar needs to get to 150°C/302°F (hard crack stage), which will take some time, so meanwhile you can clean the apples, remove the stalk and insert the sticks; they’ll need a strong push!

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Once the sugar is bubbling away, add the food colouring until you get your desired colour

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I cannot stress enough here just how hot the mixture is, please be careful! While kids will love the end result, this recipe is not for them to do themselves. I work with hot sugar a lot as part of my day job, and I’m forever burning myself, and I would never want anyone else, especially children, to endure that.

Once its at temperature, turn off the heat and quickly add the vanilla. It will bubble up a bit, be warned! Then, working quite quickly, you can start dipping the apples.

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I like to tip up the saucepan with one hand, and dunk with the other, twirling the stick to make sure the apple gets a full coating. Then give it a few seconds for excess to drip off before placing on either greaseproof paper, or a well greased baking tray.

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The candy sets hard very quickly, so you can straight on to the next stage: melting the chocolate or candy melts. I like to do this in a pan above hot water, but you could use a microwave.

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Depending on the type of candy melts you use, you might need to add some vegetable or sunflower oil to make it a little runnier and give it more shine. I use Wilton melts, which are quite thick, so I have to do this.

Once melted, load up a piping bag, or ziploc with some of the melted candy, and pipe the outlines of the features of the poison skull onto the now set apple – it can look a little silly, once you’re done it’ll look better!

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Once set, spoon the remaining white melts over the apple, and let it run down over the edges and create its own drip pattern

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These will keep just fine as they are in a sealed container for 2-3 days (but not in the fridge, unless you want a sticky mess on your hands!). You can also wrap them in cellophane to make a perfect gift 🙂

Please note, the red candy is hard. You may need to lick it before you can really bite into it, but that’s how I like it!

Now these are the only type of poison apple to eat, so don’t go accepting any fruit from strange old ladies now!

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