This Latest Party Trend Is the Sweetest Way to Serve a Favorite Fall Treat

‘Tis the season for crisp, juicy apples to star in a variety of desserts, snacks, and meals. One of the most iconic fall apple treats is the classic caramel apple. It’s the perfect mix of juicy, sweet-tart apple with gooey caramel. The only issue I sometimes find with caramel apples is that I prefer a higher caramel-to-apple ratio than the whole apple offers.

The simplest solution is to slice up apples to dip in a separate caramel dip. Now, caramel apples are getting the TikTok trend treatment where people are making full apple dipping bars, and we’re totally here for it.

How to Make a Caramel Apple Dipping Board

These apple dipping boards are perfect for an autumnal gathering. Guest can select what they want to dip their apples in as well as what toppings they want for each apple slice, meaning plenty of fun options instead of committing to a single dipped apple.

1. Prepare Your Apples

Slice your apples into wedges that you and your guests can easily grab. You can also skewer the wedges to make dipping and handling easier. Wait until the day of the gathering to slice your apples, and prevent further browning with these tricks. Include a variety of different apples, if you’re able, as different apple varieties have different levels of sweetness and tartness. For example, Granny Smith apples are snappy and tart, and Honeycrisp apples have intense sweetness and a crisp bite as the name suggests. You can also substitute some of the apples for pears if you want more variety.

2. Decide on Your Dips

Caramel is an obvious choice for this bar, but it’s not the only dip your guests might enjoy. Melt soft caramel candies, dark, semisweet, milk, and white chocolate, butterscotch chips, or even peanut butter chips to make a variety of options. Put the sweets in wide-mouth mason jars, then fill up a crock pot halfway with water, put the jars in the water bath, and turn the crock pot to high. The candies will melt, and stay gooey as you and your guests get dipping.

3. Pick Your Toppings

As with dips, a variety of topping options is your friend here. You can chop nuts, crush cookies and pretzels, and divvy up portions of mini M&Ms and other candies and items such as shredded coconut or dried cranberries. To keep them organized and make your setup cute and easy to use, put portions in the separate cups of a 12-cup muffin tin.

Once your ingredients are all prepped and ready to go, arrange your goodies on a big wooden cutting board or serving platter and get dipping. It will be easy to get in the autumn spirit while gathered around this festive fall dessert.