Latest / The Monégasque Table / Edible Glitter on Candy Apples: In the Candy, Then 10 Seconds
Transcript
- Dana: 10 seconds. That's how long you get, apparently, between dipping a candy apple and the shell going hard. I found that out with 12 apples and a bowl of glitter I never got to use. Margaux: Welcome to The Monégasque Table. Halloween is 9 days away, so today's question is a countdown question: how do you get edible glitter on candy apples? Dana: And I mean real candy apples. The red glassy ones. Not caramel. Margaux: Here's the answer up front. The glitter goes in 2 places, and each has its own moment. The first is inside the candy. A pastry site's candy-apple recipe cooks the sugar to 300 degrees, the hard crack stage, then takes the pan off the heat and adds the food coloring and the edible glitter, swirling gently, not stirring hard. Then it waits until the candy cools to about 280 before dipping. The second place is on the outside. The same recipe lets the dipped apple drip for about 5 seconds, then rolls the bottom half in a shallow bowl of glitter, and it warns you've got about 10 seconds before the shell firms up. Your bowl of glitter was the right idea. It just needed to be next to the pan, not across the kitchen. Dana: It was across the kitchen. Margaux: Everybody's is, the first time. Dana: Okay, the countdown. It's 9 days out. What do I do, and when? Margaux: This week, you buy 2 things: a candy thermometer and your glitter. The recipe is blunt about the thermometer. Sticky apples mean the sugar never reached 300. You can't eyeball hard crack. Then it's a 2-day job at the end. The night before, you take the wax off the apples. Store apples have a food-grade wax, and the recipe calls removing it the single biggest factor in a bubble-free shell. Scrub them in hot water, or dunk them in steaming hot, not boiling, water for 1 minute. Dry them completely, and chill them uncovered overnight. Day 2, you cook. The candy takes about 25 to 30 minutes, and the thermometer will sit around 250 for a while as the water cooks off, then climb fast. Dana: And the wax matters for the glitter too? Or just the bubbles? Margaux: It matters for everything that sits on the shell. The recipe says a shell that cracks off the apple usually means the coat was too thick or the wax wasn't removed. If the shell slides off, your glitter goes with it. And it says a thin, even coat sticks better than a thick one. So the glitter is only as good as the shell under it. Dana: Sparkle Lab. 300 degrees. That's hotter than I bake anything. Does glitter survive that? Margaux: This is the fun part. The safety data sheet for the luster dust lists the titanium dioxide component's melting point at about 3,000 degrees Celsius. It's a mineral pigment, and the data sheet describes it as heat-stable. A 300-degree candy pan is not a problem for it. What is a problem is stirring hard, which the recipe warns against, because it whips air into the candy. That's why it says swirl the pan gently. Dana: Dust or flake inside the candy? Margaux: Flake, for the inside. Glitter flake is 50 to 500 microns, and inside a clear red shell it shows as points of light, like looking into stained glass. Luster dust is 5 to 25 microns and gives a smooth metallic sheen, so swirled through the candy it turns the whole shell pearly rather than sparkly. Both are pretty. They're just different apples. For the bottom-half roll, flake again. It's the one you'll see from across the room. Dana: And is candy even a place glitter's supposed to go? I'm feeding this to 8-year-olds. Margaux: You're right to ask. The federal listing for the mica pigment, 21 CFR 73.350, names its food categories one by one, and hard and soft candies are on that list. And a TV-network candy-apple recipe I read says it in one line: just be sure to buy the edible kind. That's the whole safety lesson. A jar that only says "non-toxic" or "for decoration" with no ingredient list is not the edible kind, and the FDA says not to use those directly on food. Dana: Now my round. You keep saying "the day before." I'm a planner. I was going to make these Thursday and have Friday free for costumes. And the recipe says candy apples are best the day they're made. Margaux: It does. It says wrapped in cellophane, they keep at room temperature for up to 24 hours. Thursday for a Saturday party is past that. Dana: And there's the humidity line. Margaux: There is. The recipe says sugar pulls moisture from humid air, so even a properly cooked shell gets sticky over time. A sticky shell is a glitter shell that's going soft and dull. Dana: So my Thursday plan is a Saturday mess. Margaux: That's the round you win, and I had the schedule wrong. I was thinking like a cake. Candy apples aren't a make-ahead bake. So the real countdown is: thermometer and glitter this week, wax off the night before the party, dip the morning of the party, cellophane them as soon as the shells are set, and keep them out of the fridge. The recipe says never refrigerate them uncovered, because the fridge makes condensation, which makes the shell sticky. And don't freeze them. Dana: How long until they're set enough to bag? Margaux: 10 to 15 minutes at room temperature, on a silicone mat or oiled foil. Then a bag and a ribbon in your party color. Dana: And the cost. Because I'm doing 12. Margaux: Glitter inside the candy is a pinch swirled into the pan, so a 10 gram jar of flake at $14.99, about $1.50 a gram, will see you through a lot of batches. The way to know your own amount is to weigh the jar before and after the first batch. Then you know exactly what 12 apples cost you, and next year you'll already have the answer. Dana: Who should skip it? Margaux: 3 skips. If you don't have a candy thermometer and won't get one, skip candy apples this year and glitter a caramel or chocolate dip instead, because a shell that never reaches 300 stays sticky no matter what's on it. If you need them made 2 days early, skip it, because they don't hold. And if the party is outdoors on a humid night, think twice, because the shell will pull moisture from the air. Dana: Dana's Scorecard. I came in with 12 bald apples and a bowl of glitter across the room. Where I landed. One: glitter goes in 2 places, swirled into the candy off the heat, and rolled on the bottom half within about 10 seconds of the drip. Two: the bowl lives next to the pan. Three: buy a thermometer, because 300 is not a guess, and dip at about 280. Four: wax off the night before, apples dry and cold. Five, my round: candy apples are a same-day job, 24 hours in cellophane, never the fridge. My caveat: I'm still making the Thursday caramel corn, so Friday is not free. Margaux: Kept, gladly. The footnote: the MONÉGASQUE Iridescent Butterfly 10 gram drink glitter is on Amazon at $14.99. Swirled into a red candy shell, it catches the light every time the apple turns. Dana: Next time, a drink that looks like a snow globe. Where does the glitter go — the shaker or the glass? Margaux: The shaker, and the glass takes 6 hours you'll want to plan for. One note before we go — this show is produced by the team at Monégasque, with AI-crafted hosts. See you at the table.