We take fine crisp and tart WNY farm fresh apples and dip them in our own molten cinnamon hard candy. Make sure not to miss out - mark it on your calendar!
Every day we make dozens upon dozens of Candy Apples and someone has to wrap them!
It’s the holiday season and that’s when many head to their kitchens to make something special. There are many chocolate candy-maker hobbyists that over-reach and find themselves with a lot of expensive ingredients and confounding results. That’s when our phone rings or the emails come.
The most common question this time of year usually has to do with the chocolate not “drying” or “drying” with a mottled gray appearance. The answer is simple - it’s a matter of temper. Not yours, but the chocolate’s. 
When referring to chocolate, temper is a methodical conditioning or training of the chocolate to set up the crystallization of the cocoa butter to achieve an attractive, useful result when the chocolate sets. Well tempered chocolate most certainly will taste better, have a better mouth feel, look more appealing and have a longer shelf life.
A note here: when I speak of chocolate, I’m referring to real chocolate with cocoa butter for the fat and chocolate liquor for the flavor, NOT the stuff with palm kernel oil for the fat and cocoa for the flavor. The latter doesn’t need tempering.
There are several uncomplicated ways for the hobbyist to temper chocolate:
Now - some rules:
Finally, never cool/set your chocolates in a refrigerator. You are likely to get into odor absorption and condensation issues. It is best to cool/set your chocolates gently in a 55°F - 65°F room with a fan stirring the air. Careful with the fan as cooling too fast by blowing hard directly on the chocolates or not not cooling fast enough can both cause undesirable crystallization.
So there is tempering chocolate in a nutshell. Overall, not very difficult once you’ve done it a few times and find out what works for you in your kitchen. Hopefully you’ll be able to experiment with tempering chocolate without the stress of a “must do” project hanging over your head. Happy dipping!
Well, here is where I lose all credibility as a gardener because I am going to tell you about the most spectacular red climbing rose that I used to grow and you will see how heavy-handed and hard-hearted I am in the garden! I’m talking about ‘Dortmund’ and its bright red, white eyed three inch, flowers. It’s blooms are produced in showy clusters from mid spring until frost. The flowers are only slightly fragrant but ‘Dortmund’ is very floriferous and it’s a vigorous grower.
As long as it is well cared for (or sometimes even if it isn’t) the ‘Dortmund’ rose is very disease-resistant. I always made sure that it got deeply watered every week unless we got a full inch of rain. If absolutely necessary it will tolerate poor soil but don’t shortchange it on sunshine! It needs to be planted where the sun will cast a shadow for at least six hours each day.
I purchased my ‘Dortmund’ roses mail-order from High Country Roses. They were potted and growing on their own roots. This means that they weren’t grafted and consequently they are more hardy. Hybrid roses are often grafted onto the roots of other more vigorous rose plants. I guess that they then grow faster but sometimes the rose from the rootstock will grow up and overtake the selected rose if the gardener does not prune it away. Sometimes gardeners actually discover that the plant from the rootstock is a better, tougher rose than the fussy, disease ridden hybrid!
I grew ‘Dortmund’ in front of my house with one plant growing up each side of the trellis and it was a beautiful sight to see, in full bloom it could stop traffic. I carefully trained the two plants to grow up the trellis by selecting three good healthy canes from each plant that were growing in the right direction and then removing all other canes. This put all the energy from the plant into growing the way that I wanted it to, up and over the trellis. I also removed any branches that shot out in wild directions and I removed spent flowers in order to encourage more blooms.
OK, so back to why I no longer grow the photogenic ‘Dortmund’ on my trellis to the disappointment of myself and my friends and neighbors. This rose was happy and healthy in my garden. I never had to spray it and yet it always had healthy dense foliage. The problem was with the pruning. I loved the rose and I didn’t mind pruning and training it as needed but I had to get up on a ladder because the plant had grown quite tall. My trellis is wobbly so I couldn’t even lean on it as I stretched out to cut the branches and to deadhead the faded blooms. I tried to use a long handled tool to prune but didn’t have the control and I still needed to guide and tie high up canes in any case. As I wrestled with the very well armed (thorny) canes at the top of the trellis it became more and more clear to me that I was going to fall eventually if I persisted. ‘Dortmund’ had to go!
It wasn’t easy battling the two ‘Dortmund’ roses out of my garden. They didn’t go easy and I was exhausted and bleeding when two days later I had finally dug and hacked and chopped at the roots enough to finally pull the roses out of the ground. I am happy to say that one of the plants survived this abuse and is now planted in the garden of my friend. I’m looking forward to seeing ‘Dortmund’ bloom again next spring!
I always remember two small boys playing in piles of rose petals when I think about the climbing rose ‘Golden Showers’. I grew its golden yellow flowers on a chain link fence in my backyard years ago until the old, bent rusty fence was replaced with a tall wooden fence that didn’t allow enough sun for the rose. It was a friendly rose for the boys because it didn’t have a lot of thorns.
I chose the climber hoping to cover the ugly fence and it did the job very well with it’s dark green glossy leaves and cheerful yellow flowers that bloomed profusely in the spring and continued less abundantly for the rest of the season. The flowers were almost five inches wide with a mild fragrance. They would fade to cream as they aged becoming loosely formed and easily dropping tons of petals on the driveway for my children’s amusement.
This easy and vigorous rose climbs about ten feet tall and gets a spread of six to twelve feet. I think I spaced my plants about four or five feet apart in order to get good coverage and I trained them to grow horizontally along the fence to encourage more blooming. It grows in zones five to ten.
This large-flowered climber is very disease resistant if it is planted in full sun with good air circulation and watered deeply once a week. Morning is the best time to water and it’s a good idea to avoid wetting the leaves as much as possible. Mine grew in heavy clay soil to which I had added amendments (compost and well rotted manure). I always would cover the soil with a mulch in the spring to keep down weeds and hold in moisture.
Disease resistance is the single most important factor to consider when choosing a rose. Roses that are disease resistant might still show signs of disease at times but they should be tough enough to get past it. It is a good idea to remove diseased leaves when possible and to clean up leaves and petals from the ground around the plants.
If I notice aphids on a rose I pull out the garden hose and blast them off with plain water. If I do this a couple times in the summer it takes care of the problem. I look for these insects on the flower buds and under tender new leaves.
I purchased my ‘Golden Showers’ roses mail-order from White Flower Farm (if I remember correctly). They arrived bare root and I planted them in well prepared holes to give them a good start. The main goal with a new plant is to establish a good root system. I use a granular rose food on roses (but I pretty much don’t fertilize anything else) and I also like to spread rotted manure around them a couple times each season. They really seem to like manure. It’s best not to fertilize a new rose right away though. Give it time to settle in first.
Removing faded flowers will encourage repeat blooming but other than that it’s best not to prune any more than necessary the first two years while the rose is getting established. After that you can just prune as needed in late winter or early spring.
‘Golden Showers’ is a great cottage garden rose. I liked having mine on the chain link fence but it would also look good planted on a post, trellis, arbor, pillar or on a wall. I’ve read that it can also grow as a free-standing shrub but I can’t imagine that because of it’s relaxed and arching habit of growth and the way that it throws out long branches.
I guess in the right place that might work but it would be pretty wild looking.
I wish that I had more sunny areas in my garden where I could plant roses. I sure miss this yellow one. Since the boys are no longer interested in hanging out with roses I would plant it with a purple clematis as it’s companion. Wouldn’t that be pretty!
photo h/t: White Flower Farm
I’d like to post about some of the roses that I have grown over the years but first I will discuss my rose philosophy. Yep, stop rolling your eyes, that’s right, I do have a rose philosophy!
Here it is. Number one: I think when people decide to grow roses they make their first mistake right away because they become enamored with the beautiful close-up pictures of blooms. The flowers are so beautiful that it is easy to lose all perspective. Catalogs never have pictures that show what the whole bush looks like. You won’t be just growing a flower, you will be growing a whole plant so you need to step back and look at the entire plant, the leaves, the shape, the texture. Some roses with breathtaking flowers are very unattractive plants overall. For example, the hybrid teas are not good looking shrubs (they are bare at the bottom) although they do hold their lovely flowers on long stems which are great for the vase.
Rose plants come in many shapes and forms so you will need an idea of what will fit nicely in your garden. Do you want something to climb on your fence or trellis or do you want a shrub? Big or small? Do you want something arching like a waterfall or stiffly upright? The plant will make a big statement in your garden so it should be a shape and form that will fit in attractively.
That’s one thing to consider but even more important is the health of the rose plant. So, number two: only consider roses that are disease and pest tolerant. Hybrid teas along with their unattractive shape suffer from Black Spot and other rose maladies. They need a very regular and intensive spray program. Spraying isn’t good for you or your garden and it isn’t necessary! There are plenty of great roses that don’t require it.
Oh, and lastly number three: roses love sun so don’t even consider planting a rose in a shady area. Give a disease tolerant rose lots of sun, good air circulation, and decent soil and you will have a healthy low care plant.
So, look at the whole plant when picking a rose, then make sure that it is disease tolerant and plant it in the sun where it can thrive.
Over the next few weeks I will be posting on the five different roses that I have grown. I’ve had some that I can highly recommend and I will tell you all that I know about them. One thing I can tell you right now, though, is that I have become sentimental about all the roses that I have grown so far. I may lust over the glossy photos of temperamental rose blooms in the plant catalogs, but my love for the tough roses that I have grown is the real thing!
I’d like to write a post now about one of my favorite plants called Anemone ‘September Charm’. It’s also called Windflower or Japanese Anemone. I have several large clumps of ‘September Charm’ growing in my garden. It grows in zones 5 to 8 in sun to part sun and organic soil.
It has so many assets that I hardly know where to start! It was one of the first plants that I discovered as a new gardener. I was looking for easy plants since I was a beginner but I expected that as I learned about gardening I would progress to more difficult plants (more about how that worked out another time). I don’t remember where I found my first little pot of ‘September Charm’ but I only bought one. I have divided that one plant several times since then to share with friends and to add more to my garden.
I understand that some people consider this plant to be a thug but that hasn’t been the case in my garden. It is such a tough plant though that it will survive neglect and still look good. I have some growing in an area that I’ve converted to a pathway but the ‘September Charm’ keeps coming back no matter how much I pull it out! I could eliminate it if I was determined but I like it’s persistence and the way it grows so small and cute under duress.
One of my favorite things about this plant is that the foliage always looks so nice because it never seems to suffer from pests or disease. It’s always a little late to start growing in the spring but once it is up it has attractive, healthy leaves and they stay nice well into the fall because the plant is so hardy. In fact the plant in the picture was under a foot of snow just days before I took the photo but there it is pretty and blooming.
I like that this Anemone grows in clumps. I like plants that stay put so even though the clumps of ‘September Charm’ grow wider over time they don’t wander recklessly throughout the garden.
My plants don’t need to be staked, they have a graceful upright habit. If yours were to flop then you could try another location because some more sun might do the trick although this plant does well in part shade. This is also a see-through plant which means that it can be planted in front of smaller plants or other objects and you could still see them through the flower stems which are 2 to 3 feet tall, the foliage is only about 1 foot tall.
I rarely water my Anemone’s except when there hasn’t been any rain for well over a week. They do like a nice mulch and that helps to keep the soil moist. When you decide that they need dividing then spring is the time to do it. Mine haven’t been divided for years, maybe about five years or so but they are due to be divided this spring. Otherwise as far as care goes just cut them to the ground in the fall after frost blackens the leaves.
So, all this information and I haven’t even told you about the flowers! They are a great silvery pink bloom that is very attractive to bees. I love to stand by a clump of Anemone in the late summer and listen to the bees buzzing loudly around it. The bloom lasts a long time, from late July to October. I never bring flowers in the house, myself, but I understand that they are a good cut flower.
There are other Anemone’s to choose from such as ‘Honorine Jobert’ which is a white one. I haven’t tried any of them but I’ve heard that there are many worth having. They can be used in the flower border, containers, massing or in the woodland garden. I think that they would be good up against the house as a foundation plant also.
‘September Charm’ does have one major fault though because when the flower buds begin to swell it is a sure sign that the end of summer is on it’s way. I love the flowers but I wait for them with a melancholy anticipation.
Our trees here in Buffalo, have been devastated by a freak October snow storm that covered them in heavy wet snow. The weight pulled branches and whole trees to the ground. Many, many of our trees have been killed and many more severely injured. It is heartbreaking and unsettling to see the results of the storm on street after street. Mother nature broke the limbs and broke our hearts!
My young Sugar Maple turns the most beautiful orange and red every year. It is a spectacular sight to see it in it’s Autumn glow, backlit by the sun but then it drops it’s leaves frustratingly early in the season and the show is over! I’ve always wished that it would hold it’s leaves longer. That is, until now. The Sugar Maple suffered no damage in Buffalo’s Surprise October storm because the bare branches were able to support the weight of the heavy snow. It would have been a different story if there had been leaves on the tree for the snow to cling to.
I now see my little tree as wise beyond it’s years and now I will no longer mourn when it drops it’s foliage. The tree (unlike me) is prepared for another winter.
We will feel better when the debris is picked up and cleared away. I believe that there is another lesson for us this Spring that will make us feel even better yet. Many of our trees will not only survive but they will come back all the better after their natural pruning. It may seem to us that nature turned on itself but that is never the case. New trees and shrubs soon will replace those we lost. Nothing lasts forever but nature tells us (over and over again) that all is renewed.
I’ll try to keep up with defining those words I’ve used in various posts and link them to definitions below. If I’m not making something understandable or if there’s any questions, please feel free to comment.
If you’re a Buffalonian, it’s fairly difficult to miss observing Sweetest Day unless you intend to do it by choice. It’s so ingrained in the local culture that there’s always plenty of media coverage and advertising to serve as a reminder. This year (2006) Sweetest Day is on the 21st of October and that’s as late as it can be since October started on a Sunday. This has thrown off some of the media and probably a few merchants too, proclaiming Sweetest Day as October 14th. Not only was this wrong, but impossible, since the earliest Sweetest Day can be is on the 15th and only if October starts on a Saturday.
There’s some cynical undercurrent about Sweetest Day being another manufactured Hallmark holiday. The Hallmark connection has sufficiently been debunked but yes, Sweetest Day is indeed a manufactured holiday. Cynicism aside, we’re fortunate to be one of the Great Lakes cities with a strong Sweetest Day tradition. Most of the country doesn’t have a clue what Sweetest Day is or hasn’t even heard anything about it. This is unfortunate because Sweetest Day is one of only several formalized opportunities to spread around some remembrance. I’m using an obscure definition for remembrance: a greeting or token expressive of affection. In other words - showing that you care.
While the candy makers, florists and other retail merchants along some of the southern shores of the Great Lakes hope you buy those tokens of affection on Sweetest Day, a pleasant greeting costs nothing. And if Sweetest Day is taken in its historical context as an occasion to remember not only the sick, aged and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed, then a phone call, email or short visit would be the most valued gift you could give*.
*But if you have already spoiled someone by remembering them with chocolates on Sweetest Day, I don’t recommend sending them a nice email instead.
At Ko-Ed Candies, we call them candy apples these days but when I was a kid almost everyone called them apple suckers. Still, from time to time, someone will come in looking for an apple sucker. No matter what you might call them, they are definitely a treat from time past that gets little respect from today’s young sweets consumer. There are so many more choices for snacks today than there was 40 years ago.
Candy apples are a great Autumn project for the candy maker hobbyist. That’s when the apples are fresh off of the trees and the varieties available are just awesome, especially if you live by one of the country’s big apple producing regions (south shore Lake Ontario) like we do. Since the apple will get a little cooked by it’s dip in 300 degree syrup, a firm, crisp, tart apple is best. We use Empire by far more than any other type although I do like Cortland early in the apple picking season.
Warning: you will be dealing with 300 degree Fahrenheit syrup. Be very careful and also keep a pot of cold water close to quickly dip your hand it if you pick up some hot syrup on a finger or hand. A dip in cold water will decrease the severity of the burn if you’re quick. Children assisting you need to be already experienced functioning around a hot stove and toddlers should watch while restrained (literally) at a safe distance.
While my recipe is not proprietary, and there really is nothing special about the ingredients of sugar, corn syrup, water, color and flavor. I won’t discuss those specifics here. It’s just a flavored syrup cooked to hard-crack stage and there are scores of similar recipes on the Internet. The only difference is my recipe’s (formula’s) yield is maybe 20 times larger. What makes my formula different from others is the procedure. Each candymaker’s procedures are the real secret and many of them are peculiar to the candy maker and his candy kitchen. Serious candymaker hobbyists will develop their own procedures over time and it’s those procedures that will be a large factor in consistent, superior results. Yes, this means inferior, inconsistent results are part of the learning curve but at least candy makers get to eat their mistakes!
This is a good point to be more upfront about my own procedures. As the pictures show, Sandy has taken over the making of candy apples as of 5 years ago. Among the many reasons, the main one was I couldn’t lead the kitchen and do center prep for the enrobing crew while making Candy Apples at the same time. When I managed to “fit it in”, it was either past when it should be done or done in a rush. Sandy took over the job and took my formula (actually my Father’s and I don’t know where he got it from) and using her personal philosophy of how a candy apple should be (from eating many, many candy apples ) - developed her own procedures. She was soon making Candy Apples superior to my mine and with an admirable consistency.
Flavoring can be almost anything you choose but most often found is no flavor (unflavored red colored syrup - BORING), cherry flavored and cinnamon flavored. We flavor our Candy Apples with artificial oil of cassia but for a small home recipe you could use cinnamon hard candies as the flavor. If you do use cassia for flavoring, avoid breathing in the fumes that flash off when the flavor is added to the hot syrup. As you can see from the pictures, Sandy gets her face as far away from the stove as possible. Just having exposed skin in the cassia fumes is slightly uncomfortable but directly breathing in the cassia fumes is akin to eating a tablespoon of some super-potent horseradish.
Since we’ll typically dip four to 12 dozen per batch, we’ve rigged up a holder over the kettle. For a smaller sized batch, individually holding by hand while the apple drains excess syrup, then flipping and twisting to place on a lightly greased tray or wax paper is sufficient. Sandy prefers her candy apples with extra big bottoms so she’ll do a second partial dip before traying.
The dipped apples only need a few minutes to cool before wrapping with cello. It is important to wrap them before the candy starts getting sticky from the humidity. We have found cello to be the best wrap. Be careful what you use to wrap the apples because some types of wraps will grab on and will only come off a little piece at a time.
Every October we’ll see at least one order for candy apple wedding favors and sometimes we’ll have multiple orders. Since we consider the apple to be best when eaten the day it was made and not quite as good (but still decent eating) the next day, we insist on making the candy apple favors the morning of the wedding. The picture is a candy apple favor we made in 2005. The tags were made by the bride and her family.
There are many “gourmet” Candy Apple formulas on the internet and there is no doubt this old-time candy has been jazzed up a dozen different ways for modern tastes. Sandy and I believe there is no topping the simplicity and utter goodness of a well made, fresh cinnamon candy apple, but you may have your own druthers. Have fun and good eating!
Please feel free to use comments below to ask questions, clarify points or add your own experiences.
KoEdCandies.com is Gary and Sandy Whitt doing business the past 22 years as Ko-Ed Candies and now including SpongeCandy.com.