Toffee Apple fun

On Saturday its Puketaha Schools spring fair. Karen’s (the newest member of the Nourish family) son, Liam and his friend Max were very entrepreneurial and found a local orchard who kindly donated 100 odd apples. So today we turned Karen’s kitchen into Toffee Apple HQ.

I must admit this was my first attempt at toffee apples, so both Karen did a little research last night, we googled it. Most of the recipes were the same 1&1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup water, 1 Tblspn vinegar with some food colouring added at the end.

Heat the syrup up and when the sugar has dissolved boil for 8-10 minutes. You can use a candy thermometer if you have one; you want to get it to hard ball stage. An easy way to test this without a thermometer is to drop a little of the mix in a glass of cold water, if it forms a hard ball it’s ready.

With apples washed and speared with a chopstick the boys dipped them in the hot mix. It took us a while to get a rhythm and our mix was quadrupled and made several times over, all the while sales techniques and prices were discussed, plus a little taste testing.

Finally when cooled they were popped into a cellophane bag and tied with a ribbon ready for the fair.  $2 on Saturday at Puketaha School and you can have one, or why not give it a go yourself with the kids these school holidays?