Caramel Apples

So, for our Halloween party I decided to make caramel apples. I love caramel apples and, in fact, it's the one "must have" item at any fair or amusement park I go to. Years ago, I used to make them all the time. So, Harrison and I spent an hour and a half before the party making 20 caramel apples. First, you must buy four bags of those Kraft caramels. Then, you must unwrap all 1,000 tiny pieces of individually wrapped cubes of caramel in those bags. While unwrapping these, you will find that the cellophane sticks to everything by way of static cling, and thus will have to retrieve more of them off the floor than actually land in the garbage can. When that task is completed, you must melt all 1 billion of these caramels in a pan.......over low heat! This takes approximately 2 hours. Finally, you have smooth, golden caramel and you can dip your apples! But wait, you must wash and dry each apple individually and remove the stems. THEN, you may dip the apples. We very artfully applied the caramel to each apple until it was covered in golden, smooth, buttery deliciousness and placed them on a cookie sheet sprayed with Pam. They were perfect. True Martha Stewart perfection! That being done, the apples were placed on the table on trays, looking very Halloween-ish I must say. Fast forward an hour to party time. The caramel has now slipped down the apples until each apple is now coated with a thin glaze that allows just a tinge of green to show through (not very appetizing). The majority of the caramel is distributed in a large circle beneath each apple. And just try to remove one of these babies from the tray! HA! I dare you. The stickiness factor is such that the entire tray is levitated with each attempt at retrieving an apple. Finally, people just give up and move on to the pumpkin cookies. At the end of the evening, only 8 apples have been consumed. Such a waste! But no! My thrifty mind goes to work and I decide that I can "save" these rejected apples from certain doom in the trash can. So, I individually "wash" the caramel off each apple, remove the stick and voila! 12 shiny, perfectly good apples. Now, what to do? Well, perhaps dipping the apples (sliced of course) into the left over caramel would be lovely (and much less taxing). So, I slice up an apple and put the bowl of left over caramel in the microwave on "reheat". Apparently in my microwave, "reheat" means "boil the hell out of it" because upon opening the microwave, I discover a half-empty bowl of molten caramel, while the remainder is pooled around the bowl on the microwave tray like an island of golden lava. I remove the entire tray and it's contents to the counter top and attempt to scoop out some (very hot!) caramel from the remainder in the bowl. The rest of it I have to leave for later as it is about 12,000 degrees and definitely not "touchable". I enjoyed my apple and caramel dip (after it cooled down to a more tolerable 200 degrees). But this morning I was greeted with the now rock-hard island of lava, with the bowl stuck fast in it's middle. I will need a chisel to remove this substance from my microwave tray. The moral of this story? IT IS NOT WORTH IT! Do not make homemade caramel apples. This is why some intelligent person created caramel dip in a plastic tub that you can buy for $2.99 at the store! Martha Stewart be damned. No wonder she always looks slightly angry!