National Caramel Apple Day

National Caramel Apple Day is on October 31st in the United States.

Caramel apples are similar to, but not the same as, toffee or candy apples, and they are actually made in different ways.

Caramel apples are made by wrapping a sheet of caramel - caramel is sugar heated to 170 °C (340 °F) - around the apple, and then heating it so that the caramel is then melted evenly onto it. This is the commercial process, though, and homemade caramel apples usually are dipped into melted caramel, which results in a softer coating that is easier to eat.

The apples start off as apples on a stick before the caramel is added. After the caramel is applied, but before it cools and sets, the apples can also be dipped in other things such as crushed nuts, hundreds and thousands and similar items.

Caramel apples are popular at Halloween, so October 31st is a good day to celebrate them.

This is a partly healthy treat - it does contain an apple, after all - but there is a tendency for children to stop eating the apple after all the caramel has gone.

National Candy Corn Day

October 30th is National Candy Corn Day in the US.

Candy corn is a food that is strongly associated with Halloween, when the majority of it is sold, so to have a national day for it just before Halloween itself does make sense.

Despite its name, candy corn is not made from pieces of corn, although it does contain corn syrup. It may sound like a relative of popcorn, but it is in fact nothing like it.

As well as the aforementioned corn syrup, candy corn is made from water, sugar, carnauba wax (a wax made from a type of palm tree leaf) as well as fondant and marshmallow. In appearance, the finished product looks like a kernel of corn, which is where the name comes from, although they are bigger. Each piece of candy corn has three colours, with a yellow band at the broad end, a white band at the pointed tip and an orange centre. They were first created by George Renninger in the late 19th century in Philadelphia.

There are other variants to the standard yellow/orange/white version, such as one intended for Thanksgiving and another for Christmas, and even a carrot flavoured one for Easter.