Toffee Apples complete our trinity of essential Bonfire Night foods.
According to Dorothy Hartley in Food in England, toffee apples would have been (understandably) expensive before we started importing large quantities of plantation sugar. “Probably small windfall apples dipped in a toffee of honey and beeswax bedabbled the fairs of St. Batholomew even before sugar, as we know it, came into use,” she writes.
Now, however, they’re a staple of northern bonfire nights. A good toffee apple is dangerously sweet, gives a good crack when you bite into it and will probably leave shards of toffee around your face. The (non-traditional) ginger in these gives a fun little extra hint of flavour too, but you could easily leave it out.
Do make sure you keep stirring the toffee. I had one test batch that came out looking beautiful but, alas, had to get chucked in the bin thanks to a distinctive and unwelcome note of burnt sugar.
Similarly, these are good fun to do with the kids, but supervise them at all times as the toffee gets really (really!) hot.
To round out your bonfire night experience, here’s a how-to on making bonfire toffee and Yorkshire Grub’s recipe for warming Chili Parkin.
| Cook Time | 15 minutes |
| Servings |
apples
|
- 8 apples , small
- 60 g butter
- 110 g golden syrup
- 450 g golden caster sugar
- 3 tsp ginger
Ingredients
|
|
- If your apples are a little waxy, put them in a bowl and cover them in boiling water. Leave them for a minute, then dry them. This will allow the toffee to better stick to them. Twist off the stalks and skewer them on wooden kebab or lollipop sticks.
- Melt your butter in a saucepan over a gentle heat, then add the syrup and sugar.
- Bring the mixture to the boil for 10 minutes or so, stirring constantly. Your toffee's done when you can drip a bit into cold water and it goes brittle.
- Quickly dip your apples into the toffee, making sure they get a good coating, then place them on baking parchment to cool. For added texture, drizzle extra toffee over the apples as it starts to thicken up.
- If you have any toffee leftover, line a baking tin with more parchment and pour it in to smash up and eat later.