Party Fun - Caramel Apples

We recently had 12, 7 year old girls over for a birthday/Halloween party. When planning the party I was stumped with what to do for party favors.  I didn't want to do bags of plastic junk.  I know the kids love the little toys, but my house is overwhelmed with little pieces of plastic and I didn't want to overwhelm anyone else's house, plus I knew a portion of what ever I got would be staying at my house.  After giving it some thought I decided to have the girls make their own party favors and what could be better than some candy covered caramel apples.

With all the other party preparations that needed to be done I didn't want to have to worry about making caramel.  So, I used Werther's new baking caramels.  These caramels are a delicious addition to Werther's line of candies and were perfect the perfect coating for the apples.  The caramel melted evenly, was wonderfully smooth and easy to use.  Their ease and taste could easily convince me to never make caramel from scratch again.

While I loved the idea of having the girls make the caramel apples I was a little worried about the process.  I didn't want any of the girls to get burned on the caramel, but I still wanted them to experience the joy of watching a giant apple get submerged in a pot of golden caramel - it really is a beautiful thing.  By keeping the caramel off to the side and having all the toppings in buckets that could easily be passed around, the girls were able to gather around and decorate - and munch - to their hearts content.  Making it enjoyable for all.

We put out a lot of toppings for the girls to choose from - pecans, coconut, candy corn, marshmallows, candy eyes, sprinkles, m&m, chocolate chips, peanut putter chips and crushed pretzels.  The coconut was a flop, I kind of thought it would be especially once I heard one of the girls ask why they would want Parmesan cheese on their apples.  The rest of the toppings were big hits, a few of the girls even add a couple of extra scoops to the containers as we were packaging the apples, not to mention the handfuls that were eaten while they were making the apples.

While my plan was for the girls to take home beautifully decorated apples to share with their families, most of the apples didn't make it that far. And, many of the girls brought home apples that were half eaten, and by half eaten I mean all the toppings were eaten off.

I highly recommend throwing your own apple decorating party, it is great fun for all ages!