Today is the beginning of National Chocolate Week, so what better time to treat yourself to some delicious chocolate or get your children involved in making Chocolate Apples?
This Chocolate Apples recipe is from Amy Beth-Ellice. In her recipe, she uses Granny Smith apples. I have chosen to use Royal Gala because my family are not keen on sour apples, so we just picked our favourites.
This is very simple and easy to make but it will require plenty of time to dry. These are the ingredients:
- 6 Granny Smith apples
- 450g milk chocolate
- 225g white chocolate
- Lollipop sticks
- Ribbons to decorate
Method:
- Wash and dry the apples. Insert the sticks into the core. I used a soft mallet to push the sticks into the apples as our apples were quite hard.
- Melt the milk chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
- Dip the apples into the chocolate and make sure they are fully coated. Leave the chocolate apples on a parchment sheet and wait for the chocolate to dry. It might take a couple of hours.
- Only dried, use the chocolate pen to decorate.
We have received this new Candy Craft Chocolate Pen from Vivid Toys and Games. This is suitable for children aged 6 and above and can be found in leading retailers nationwide now at RRP £19.99. Inside the box, it comes with a motorised pen, 3 mould trays, 4 pen nozzles, 4 pen caps, 4 clamps, 12 plastic punches for chocolate and instructions. It requires 2 AA batteries to operate which are not included. To install the batteries, you need to use a cross screw driver to remove the battery cap.
Before I read the instructions, I kept thinking that the batteries are to help the pen to heat and melt the chocolate. However, I misunderstood. In fact, the batteries are to operate the lever to push the chocolate out from the nozzle.
I have chopped up a pack of Divine chocolate into small pieces before placing them in the pouch. Then I followed the provided instructions. I find that it is best to use chocolate buttons or smaller pieces as it will melt quicker and are easier to fill.
Both of my children enjoyed decorating the chocolate apple and much prefer to freestyle rather than use the mould trays. The chocolate pen is quick big and slightly heavy on the top to hold and design at the same time. All of us felt rather clumsy using it but after a while later, we were getting better results. There was melted chocolate everywhere on the table though as it flows out from the pen quite easily. So put a lot of baking paper down!
This comes with four pen nozzles which means I could swap the chocolate bags easily. We didn’t have coloured chocolates hence they are all in milk and dark chocolate colours! You can get bright candy melt from shops easily or buy online. I have bought them from Hobbycraft before. They are very sweet.
Here are some of the candy melts from Wilton to try out from Amazon:
I find it easy to assemble and disassemble the pen. We do find it hard to control the pen because it is so thick but it is fun for the children and they love it, especially because they could lick the chocolate!
So what will you be making this National Chocolate Week (12 – 18 October 2015)?
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review however all thoughts and opinions remain our own.
