This time of year – right before Halloween and during fall festival and fair times – is when you’d expect to find caramel apples, popcorn balls and other goodies on your list of must-haves.
If that’s the case then you need to put on your calendar the First Baptist Church of Sumrall Relay for Life Team somewhat annual caramel apple sale. They’ve got a pretty sweet thing going on.
Once or twice every year or so, as a fundraiser for the team, they have been making gourmet caramel apples covered in nuts and drizzled with white and dark chocolate.
This past Saturday members of the Relay team, which was joined by the church’s Mission team this year, started at 6 a.m. with the tedious work – making the batches of caramel first.
Using a secret, highly-guarded recipe, the teams mix up two batches of goodness in large silver pots and start the stirring process with big wooden oars that resemble canoe paddles. For approximately the next two-plus hours, volunteers switch out constantly stirring the developing caramel so it won’t stick and scorch.
And stirring means the entire bottom of the pot, not just around the edges. Some have learned the hard way with entire batches having to be trashed.
They even provide stools so shorter members can take their turn with the paddle.
June Boyer was the guardian of the candy thermometer, making sure the sweet, gooey caramel achieved its maximum stickiness, so the apples could be dipped.
The nuts had already been finely chopped and bagged, the ingredients for the next batches of caramel had been measured and the drizzling chocolates had begun the initial melting phase.
Once the caramel reaches the desired temperature, the pace quickens as apples are dipped, quickly passed on to those who roll them with nuts before they start drying, and put on trays in another room to completely dry before the drizzling team comes into play. Once the process is complete, apples are bagged in cellophane bags to which a Sumrall FBC sticker and Relay logo is affixed and tied with a purple ribbon.
Because they have both red and green apples, green apples are marked on the end of the wooden dowels with a big green dot.
The excess caramel is poured over nuts to make a turtle candy, which is also sold in batches.
Sharon Etheridge is serving as this year’s Relay team leader.
She said this is the largest fundraiser the team does. “This year the Montana Mission team joined with us, so we’ll split the money we made off the apples,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, but also a lot of fun being together.”
Team members started about 6 a.m. and finished cleaning up around 4:30 p.m. It made for a busy, but profitable, day.
A majority of the apples are presold for $12 an apple, an increase of $2 since their last sale and the first since they started making them several years ago.
In the past they have made them in both the spring and fall, but for many, one time of year is plenty. However, Etheridge said this year the Mission team is already talking about another apple-making day in April, right before Easter.
This year about 400 apples were made during a day’s time.
While the apples are presold and others were sold during the church’s Fall Festival on Wednesday night, there may still be some apples available for purchase. Etheridge suggested calling the church office, 601.758.4738, to check about availability.
Jeff Mitchell said he usually can sell 75 or 80 at work. He said they will keep for a while in the refrigerator because the caramel seals the apple. The green apples, which are a little more firm, will usually last longer than the red apples, which tend to be a little softer. He and his wife, Missy, are part of the team, with Missy helping oversee the caramel making.
Etheridge said this year they received a lot of donations for the apples, so the profit should be quite nice.
“We all chip in and buy things,” she said.
The next fundraiser the team is planning is a garage sale in the church’s Family Life center from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. Saturday Nov. 3.
“We’ll have all sizes of clothing, furniture, toys and a lot of everything else,” she said.
