Candy Apples – Sweet and Sour (Low Sugar)

Candy apples are delicious snacks in any red or green color shade… and when you decorate with no-added sugar and healthy sweet food bits, you get a healthy apple with all the sweet happy candy vibes in 4-5 ingredients 🍭🍏🍎

That includes a couple tart ingredients (that you’ll soon find out about)…

The candy apples sitting here on a plate with recipe below 👇 are using sweeter Gala red apples, but you can lean into the tart green Granny Smith apple tastes if you prefer a less sweet, and more tart apple

And a third option is adding tart ingredients to a sweet apple to get your sweet and sour.

That’s what we’re doing here! 🎉

Because during different calendar and life seasons, we prefer different flavors and natural tastes based on what balances our body. You can use your tongue as a guide where there are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter sections.

Our bodies (like in our tongue and noses) know… and they let us know by our preferences and moods.

That’s what Ayurveda is in a nutshell that I’ve been leaning into since 2008.

Especially in stressful Western world living, how Ayurveda can impactfully help guide us is this: if we’re healthy and balanced, we lean more into our natural tendencies and nature’s seasons. 🍁☀️

So Ayurveda ways are a sign of our health from our mind-body perspective where we get clues.

Our bodies are the best internal doctors.

When we’re veering off-balance, we can use Ayurveda to naturally help us get back to healthy balance with our senses… and sometimes prevent inflammations and other maladies that get complicated.

And a simple apple treat balanced with peanut butter can help us do just that one apple at a time. 😊

As mostly a Vata, I always like juicy sweet red apples, but sometimes I lean into the green tart that is slightly more healthy.

At the end of the day… an apple is an apple and their type don’t matter as much as their falling from an apple tree.

…All healthy apples are healthy. 🍎🍏

So whatever apple you choose IS great. And whatever apple you choose for these candy apples is also great. I haven’t met one I didn’t like.

Finding crunchy (and not soft) apples is one of the most important parts of this apple snack recipe, so you get a nice crunch when you bite in.

And making candy apples with a natural crunchy peanut butter is another crunch easy step.

…Then you can skip the old-fashioned step of crushing peanuts by-hand with a mortar and pestle tool, or using a modern machinery chopping processor.

…Peanut-y tastes balance this apple treat.

I grew up eating Red Delicious apples daily.

I was the apple whisperer in my family where I could bag the crisp apples in the store without bruises that some had. 😊

And these red ones are delicious, even though they are Gala that all seem crisp, so they’re being prepped for an apple dessert table. 🎉

For easy candy apples, you’ll use the whole apples.

All you need to do is de-stem them that’s easy to do cutting with scissors or you can twist, twist, twist like we did as kids.

After they are clean and dry, then it’s time to add the candy part.

You can give a sweet and pucker up sour vibe with chopped cranberries (whole and/or dried Craisins work well), and tamarind paste that’s added to the peanut butter mixture.

If you’re not familiar, tamarind fruit has a sticky texture like a fruit roll up. It has a color closer to the skin of a plum.

And often when you buy the paste, there are seeds that need to be removed.

It has a sweet and sour taste that’s good and often used in chutneys, sauces, and Thai and other exotic international recipes.

If you buy a tamarind paste package, you may wonder: what’s the best way to take the paste out?

You can pull out some like taffy and leave the rest for later.

Then remove the seeds if they’re tucked densely in the paste… btw, that would be a good older ‘lil person task sparing you minutes, where they get to play with their food like play dough… just sayin’!

Then when you have your tamarind de-seeded and ready to go, you can mix with your other candy ingredients, and smear the finished peanut butter-tamarind-cranberry mixture on your apples… another fun project.

After you smear on your coating mixture, you’re ready to sink your teeth in and enjoy. Simple and easy… gotta love that!

…And speaking of teeth, an apple or sweet treat like this is a great way to clean your teeth.

That’s the opposite effect of sugar in most candy.

So that’s another way to appreciate these “candy” apples.

For final touches, these balanced, sweet-sour candy apples are easy to pick up with bottoms up.

…There’s no need to add a wooden stick through, but up to you as you could for candy fun. 🍭

And finally, zhugh with shredded coconut and dried cranberries for extra joyful notes of oooh’s and aaah’s… the balanced symphony-harmony in the mouth. 😋