My S.O. has been after me to create some variations on the Peanut Butter Caramel Chewy recipe that I use to make Christmas wreaths, Easter Egg Nests and other treats. After all, the recipe lends itself nicely to a host of fun and interesting additions. <br /> <br />So since we’re in the midst of fall and caramel apple season, I thought it would be a great idea to combine the two! <br /> <br /> But the experimentation process proved to be a bit more involved than I had anticipated. I knew that using fresh apples would leave the mixture too gooey, so I settled on dried apples instead. But merely adding the apples caused the mixture to get hard and dry, because the dried apples were soaking up every extra ounce of moisture. <br /> <br />That lead to Batch No. 2–rehydrating the apple. Guess what? Way too soft! <br /> <br />Batch No. 3–cooking the mixture longer. I ended up with a chewy that was more of the texture of a Butterfinger candy bar (although not a bad prospect!). <br /> <br />Back to the drawing board. For all the previous batches, I had been cooking the apples in the syrup, so I decided to pat the apples dry after rehydrating them and add them at the end with the cereal. I had also noticed that adding the dried apples made the mixture too sweet, so I replaced lemon juice as part of the rehydrating liquid. Perfect! <br /> <br />In the meantime, friends, family and neighbors got all the rejects, after I made them promise not to send me any dental bills, ha. <br />

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