Chocolate Caramel Apples With Peanuts

I was browsing at the craft store one day and they had a little section for making candy/caramel apples.

I love caramel – even more than chocolate.  (Although I have to add that I love dulce de leche most of all.)

I decided to give these a try.  I’d never made them before, but I love cooking and especially like making stuff from scratch.  There’s just something about it that always seems to taste better than anything you buy at the store.

I had so much fun yesterday!  Not only did I make caramel apples, but I made cinnamon rolls.  I think I gained like 5 pounds just sampling everything, but…life is short and I’ll try to get a walk in later today.

Since I love to do photography, I must say the red colors, cinnamon and caramel make for tantalizing photographs.

So in this post, I’ll share the photography end of this.  If you want the recipe – it’s easy, I promise – go over to Hubpages where I published my article, “Easy Caramel Apples.”

There’s just something about apples.  Even Michael Pollan wrote a book called The Botany of Desire  and I can tell you, he spends 1/4 of the book just talking about apples and the way they’ve shaped human history.

But it’s harvest season and this past weekend, several apple festivals were held in Western NC.  I can see why.

Big. Red and Juicy.

Red delicious apples.

How can you resist that?

Well, I didn’t stop there.  I had some chocolate caramel that was begging me to use it.  I had all these apples staring at me with their luscious reds and perfectly pomme-like hues.

Add the sticks, the peanuts, the wrappers…and oh, my goodness.  It’s a taste-bud party with photographic delight:

Beautiful Caramel Apples – I need to give them away…they’re taunting me now.

The fun is not over…I had way too much fun photographing these delights from different angles and stages:

The apples – just before dipping them into the caramel.  So pretty!

No, I wasn’t NEARLY done.  I was torturing myself with visions of Candy Apple Land:

A close-up of the delicious apples. Oh my!

This is the shot I took when I thought, “Oh! What pretty gifts these will make!”

My hubby wanted in on the action, too.  He gave one a try.  It looks….industrial.  I mean, he’s a mechanical engineer by trade….

My hubby tried. I told him that, um…I’d do the rest of the apples. Ha!