making lately: apple dippers

Last week I helped out with Hendrik's classroom Harvest Party (I feel like such a school mom!), and to go with the fall theme, I came up with these apple dippers. Caramel apples + DIY toppings were sure to be popular with elementary school kids, but they were also bound to be a total mess. Let's be honest - caramel apples are pretty much impossible for anyone to eat tidily. But slicing up the apples takes away that problem and still leaves you with all of the yum!

I used the SnowSweet variety of apples since they do very little browning after being sliced, which means I could do the setup a few hours in advance (thanks to my favorite farmer's market guy who always fills me in on the good stuff!); I hear that Cameo, Cortland, and Empire would be other good options in this regard. Then an inexpensive pack of short skewers from Amazon turned them into fancy little dippers in short order.

For the dipping itself, I kept it super easy... just bought a few containers of caramel dip from the produce section of the grocery store, along with some options for toppings: mini marshmallows, chopped nuts, mini chocolate chips, sprinkles. With a bunch of kids, I found it was easiest to dip for them (since it takes a little finagling to get that store-bought dip to stick to the apple), and then set the skewers on their plates, where they could spoon on toppings of their choice. And you better believe that 1st-3rd graders tried to get every topping onto every slice.

These were a huge hit with the kids! Their eyes went wide when they walked into the classroom and saw an array of toppings, for sure. Dippers like this would be fun and easy for any fall gathering, whether a classroom party or a ladies night (maybe pair with some hard cider?) or whenever you and your friends/family might get together.