Caramel Covered Apples

I love fall! (actually, I love all seasons in their turn; winter is my favorite, summer is my least favorite, but I love them all!) In the spirit of fall, Chaz and I made some caramel covered apples! I have never done this before, but I heard it was really pretty easy so I thought we'd give it a go!
Here is just about everything we used:
1 Bag of Caramels
craft popsickle sticks
2 1/2 Tablespoons of heavy whipping cream
5 Granny Smith apples
(and anything you'd like to decorate your apples if you so choose)

What you don't see if me boiling a pot of water, in which I put each apple in for 3-10 seconds and then I scrubbed the wax off (organic apples don't have this problem, I bet!) with natural dish soap and a toothbrush. I read online that this helps the caramel stick better if you do this and then refrigerate again.

We used pretzels and red and white sprinkles because that's what we had on hand!

This is my cutie boy, Chaz, helping me break pretzels into smaller pieces to put on some of the apples! It didn't take many, and we snacked on the rest as worked!







Next we placed wax/parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and then buttered it to help the apples not stick while they cooled off. It really did help a lot, and we got to get our hands all messy; one of the best parts!





Then we unwrapped the whole bag of caramels and put them into a 4 cup microwave safe measuring cup (thanks, Tara!) with 2 1/2 Tblsp of heavy whipping cream. We heated them in the microwave until they were melted and soft.












While the caramel mixture melted, we removed the stems from the apples and stuck a stick into the core. Then we baptized each apple into caramel heaven and placed them on the buttered parchment paper sheet! Chaz's job was to immediately decorate the apples as he wanted!






They were glorious and begging to be eaten, but we had to put them in the fridge for about 15 minutes while Hannah finished her nap.











Then, it was time to chow down!!