Our Neighbor, Co-Worker, Teacher, Etc. Gifts 2010

This year's neighbor, co-worker, teacher, other random people gift idea comes courtesy of my friend, Rachel. She did this idea last year & shared it on her blog. It's a can of "homemade" carmel apple dip & a couple of apples...


I thought it was such a cute idea that I asked Rachel if she would mind if I copied it from her. She was nice enough to not only let me copy it, but to give me her copy of the can label too, so that I didn't have to design my own!

So, how do you make "homemade" carmel apple dip that is canned? Well, it's so easy! Just take a can of sweetened condensed milk, remove the label, submerge it completely in water, turn up the heat & boil that sucker for 3 hours! As the sweetened condensed milk boils, it carmelizes and turns into the yummiest carmel dip EV-AH! I was seriously eating it by the spoonful...because I had to make sure it was edible before I gave it out to everyone (naturally). Once the carmel is done, you take the cans out of the water, let them cool & then attach the new label. Voila! It looks like you made homemade carmel apple dip & had it canned!

If you are interested in doing this gift idea, here are a few tips from Rachel (along with a few from me) that will help you in the process...

Make sure the cans stay completely submerged the entire time. If they are not completely submerged, they may explode. This requires a little bit of babysitting since you will evaporate about 4-6 cups per hour. Make sure you plan out a whole day to do the boiling if you are planning to do a lot of them. Also, turn the cans every once in awhile so that they all get equal boiling treatment on all sides. By the time you are done with all the boiling, you will be sick of seeing sweetened condensed milk cans...it's a long process! I told Mike that if I never see another can of sweetened condensed milk, it will be too soon!

If you have a really tall pot & you want to stack cans, make sure they are staggered. You can not set one can directly on top of the other because all sides of all cans need to be in direct contact with the water at all times, but they can be staggered. I found it was just easier to do one layer in a pot at a time.

Do not use a non-stick pan to do your boiling. When you pull the original labels off the cans, the glue will remain. When you boil the cans, the glue comes off & puts a lovely sticky residue on the side of the pan. It comes off with an SOS pad & a little bit of elbow grease (or your husband's elbow grease...hehe). But, if you use a non-stick pan, you can't use the SOS pad on it & you will be scrubbing for hours.

Also in reference to the glue residue, your cans will be covered in it when they come out of the water...making them look dull & dirty. You can scrub at them with a damp cloth & get most of the gunk off...but to make the cans shine & look like new, just rub a little bit of olive oil on them. My awesome hubs figured this one out for me.

The 3 hour requirement is actually flexible. You can do it for as little as 2 hours & get a really light, runny carmel. Or, you can do it for 4 hours to get a dark, thick carmel. Rachel recommended 3 hours, so that's what I did & it was perfect!

Buy your sweetened condensed milk when it is on sale. It's not the cheapest stuff on the planet (usually about $2 a can), but if you find a good sale, you can cut that price down to about $1 a can. That really helps...especially when you are making 50 of them like we did. Also, try to buy your apples on sale too. Apples stay good for awhile, so you can buy them several weeks in advance and, as long as you store them in a cool, dry place, they will still be good when it's time to give them out.

Okay, so there you go! One of the cutest Christmas neighbor gifts ever! A huge "thank you" to Rachel for sharing the idea & all her tips on how to do it (and also for giving me her labels too). They turned out really cute & we've had a GREAT response from everyone we gave them too. Merry Christmas! --Lindsay