Take Candy Apples To Sweet New Heights With This Wispy Topping

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If you consider yourself a candy apple connoisseur, there's a strong chance you've eaten this delicacy covered in all sorts of extras including cinnamon candy, chopped nuts, and melted chocolate. However, next to the usual sprinkles, gummy candies, and chocolate chips, there's one unconventional ingredient that gives candy apples an unexpected twist. Among the 14 unique toppings your candy apples need, cotton candy gives these confections an enticing texture and noteworthy appearance.

One of the extra steps you should take to make superior candy apples is dressing them in unique toppings that offer a range of both color and texture. Cotton candy has long had a reputation thanks to its sweet and fluffy thread-like consistency. To use cotton candy for a simple upgrade, simply add torn portions to the tops of freshly-dipped candy apples.

Yet, if you want to make cotton candy apples that also have a delightful pastel hue, consider using a few specific ingredients. Besides the usual combination of granulated sugar and light corn syrup, swap out the red food dye for a combination of white gel food coloring plus a few drops of your favorite pastel colors. Options like Americolor's Bright White Soft Gel Paste and Americolor's variety pack of 12 soft gel-paste food colors are both available on Amazon. Once you've heated your candy apples' primary ingredients to the hard-crack stage over your stove, you're just a few steps away from enjoying pastel-colored fruits topped with light and airy cotton candy.

To prepare these colorful fruits with success, remove your saucepan from the heat once the sugary contents reach around 300 – 310 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir in the white food coloring and add a few drops of soft blue, pink, and purple gel food dye. Instead of mixing the dye with a spoon, maneuver the saucepan to one side, and dip your apples into the mixture one by one.  This delicate technique allows the colors to marble naturally as opposed to blending together.

To give your fruit even more cotton candy appeal, before you add in the food coloring, include a small amount of cotton candy flavor such as LorAnn's Cotton Candy Flavor Extract available on Amazon. Once all of your apples have been properly dipped, allow them to cool for at least an hour before adding a select assortment of cotton candy to each stick.

You can also use cotton candy to make a range of seasonal confections. Make Halloween-themed apples with green and purple food dye and use white cotton candy to represent spider webs. You can also melt caramel for apples and top each dipped fruit with green apple cotton candy for a simple fall-inspired treat. Alternatively, make summer-friendly candy apples with candy coating dyed with white and yellow food dye and lemon-flavored oil. Top these sun-colored apples with white cotton candy and blue gummies for a cute, seasonally-appropriate warm weather treat.