Now that the kids are back in school, I’ve been looking for portable snack ideas.  When I pick the girls up at the end of the school day they are STARVING and always looking for a quick treat. I typically pack something like a yogurt or piece of fruit, but occasionally it is fun to pack them something extra special.  So when M&M's asked me to come up with a recipe that featured the flavors of fall, I knew that a caramel apple recipe would be perfect.

HOWEVER.. the idea of my kids eating an entire sticky caramel apple in the backseat of my car sounds more like a recipe for disaster, so I knew I had to scale it down. That is where the idea of Caramel Apple Bites was born.  Small, snack size bites that they can pop into their mouths without any messy leftovers like the core.

The recipe is pretty straight forward.  You need apples, caramels and sticks.  (In this case I used wooden cake skewers that I cut down.)  Typically caramel apples are coated with chopped peanuts, but since I was bringing these treats onto the school campus, I wanted to steer away from peanuts.


Instead I decided I would crust them with White Chocolate Candy Corn M&M’s (this recipe is about the flavors of after all.)

If you haven’t seen these seasonal M&M’s flavors, you need to visit WalMart.  At my store they had them in the Seasonal/Candy aisle.

M&M’s also makes a “Candy Apple” flavor which is exclusively at Wal-Mart.  Hmmm.. great minds?!

The first thing I did was chop up the apples. Here is a tip I have for cutting up apples.  I use a melon baller to remove the core.  It is so much easier than removing the core with a knife!



I microwaved them for about 30 seconds until they were melted (watch them carefully they will melt fast and then have a tendency to burn).  In order to coat your apples you want to dry them well and make sure the caramel is very hot.  As soon as it begins to cool it won’t want to stick to the apple surface:

Immediately roll them in the M&M’s and put them on a plate to cool:

They were a hit with the kids.
And so as not to leave out the baby (caramel apples are tough to eat if you don’t have teeth),  I picked up some Mott’s Apple Sauce for him, which was right up his alley.  (You are never to young to enjoy the Flavor of Fall!)