Chocolate Caramel Apples —rsquo; The Sweetness Mom Put Up Since Fall

Spring is leaning in. The willow by the river is showing yellow at the buds. The chickens are starting to lay again — twelve eggs Tuesday, fifteen Wednesday, eighteen Thursday — after a winter of three or four a day. The mud has come. The mud will be with us for three weeks. There is no way to enjoy the mud and there is no way to avoid the mud. The mud is what comes between snow and grass. You manage it.

Calving is winding down. We are at thirty-one calves with three more cows to drop. The two sets of twins are doing well. One of the September baby's mother — the cow who calved in September and who has been wintering with him in the calf shed — has rebred and will calf in late June. She is a good mother. Some cows you keep for the milk. Some cows you keep because they earn it.

Patrick had a hard week. The medication slipped on Tuesday and he was tremoring badly Wednesday and Thursday and we gave him the breakthrough dose on Friday and Saturday and by Sunday he was leveled. Mom called the neurologist Friday. We are going up Tuesday next week to adjust again. The trajectory is what it is. We adjust. We adjust again. The disease pulls. The medication pulls back. The man in the middle is worn out.

I drove up to Bozeman Saturday. Maggie is four weeks. She is an actual person now — she focuses, she tracks faces with her eyes, she makes sounds that are not crying. Tara is starting to look like a person again instead of a woman who has been through war. Cole is sleeping more. He told me Tara has been sleeping in four-hour stretches now and that is the difference. Maggie is on something like a schedule. The schedule has rules even Maggie does not know but that her body is following. Cole said, This is the easy phase, right. Tara said, Cole, do not jinx it. They are good with each other. They are good parents. I held Maggie for half an hour. I did not put her down. She slept on my chest and I sat in the recliner in the living room and Cole and Tara took turns napping and the house was quiet and I have not held a baby that long ever in my life and the chest of a thirty-year-old uncle is, apparently, a place where a four-week-old will sleep deeply, and that is a fact about my body I had not known and that I am grateful for.

I shod two horses Wednesday and one Friday. Mud is hard on the work. The mud sticks to everything and the horses' hooves are wetter than they should be in March and the work is slower because you have to clean each hoof more thoroughly than in winter. The pay is the same. The work is harder. I am not complaining. I am noting. The waiting list is at fourteen for April and the work will be steady through the spring.

Cooked Sunday a leg of pork — same as a roast pork shoulder but with the bone in and the skin scored for crackling — and the kind of meal that is half dinner and half ceremony. The pork was four pounds, scored, salted heavy on the skin, roasted at four-fifty for fifteen minutes to puff the skin, then dropped to three twenty-five for two hours. The skin came out crisp and shattering and the meat under it was tender and juicy and pulled apart with a fork. Mom had made apple sauce from apples we had stored since fall and her own bread. The crackling was the highlight. Patrick had two pieces. I had four. I am a thirty-year-old man who does not apologize for eating four pieces of pork crackling. Saturday cookout was nine men. Marcus made one hundred eighty-five days, six months. We did not mention it. He knew we knew. He nodded at me across the fire once. That was the acknowledgment. Six months. He is going to make it to a year. The fire helps. The crackling helps. Maggie sleeping on my chest for thirty minutes helps most.

Mom’s applesauce came from apples we’d stored since fall — the same apples that had been sitting in the cold room since October, waiting for a meal worth opening them for. A Sunday with crackling and bread and Patrick leveled out after a hard week felt like that meal. If I’d had more time and a little more energy after shoeing three horses in the mud, I’d have done something more with those apples — something like these chocolate caramel apples, which take the same stored-fruit simplicity and turn it into the kind of dessert that feels like it belongs at the end of a day you actually got through.

Chocolate Caramel Apples

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 1 hr (includes setting) | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 6 medium apples (Granny Smith or Honeycrisp), stems removed
• 6 wooden craft sticks or skewers
• 11 oz bag soft caramel candies, unwrapped
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil or shortening
• 1/2 cup chopped roasted peanuts or pecans (optional)
• Flaky sea salt, for finishing (optional)
• Parchment paper, for setting

Instructions

1. Prep the apples. Wash and thoroughly dry each apple — moisture is the enemy of caramel adhesion. Insert a craft stick firmly into the stem end of each apple. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Melt the caramel. Combine the unwrapped caramels and heavy cream in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir constantly until fully melted and smooth, about 5–7 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 2 minutes until slightly thickened.
3. Dip in caramel. Holding each apple by the stick, dip it into the caramel, tilting and rotating to coat the lower two-thirds. Let the excess drip off for 10–15 seconds, then set on the prepared parchment. Repeat with all apples. Refrigerate 15 minutes to firm the caramel layer.
4. Melt the chocolate. Combine chocolate chips and coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring between each, until fully melted and smooth.
5. Dip in chocolate. Remove the chilled caramel apples from the refrigerator. Dip or spoon chocolate over each apple, coating over the caramel. Work quickly. If using nuts, roll the chocolate-coated apple in chopped nuts immediately before the chocolate sets.
6. Finish and set. Return apples to parchment. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt if desired. Refrigerate at least 20 minutes until the chocolate is fully set before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 72g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 110mg