Bleeding candy apples filled with beet caramel

Chop beets, blend with a little water and pass through a strainer for beet juice.

Measure the cream for the caramel. Weigh in butter, 150 g sugar and about 35 g corn syrup, add enough beet juice to moisten everything, and cook to a caramel.

Meanwhile bloom gelatin by sprinkling it gently over a little cool water so each granule hydrates without clumping.

Cook out any sugar that seized when the cold cream went in, until no clumps remain.

Stir in the bloomed gelatin to dissolve; keep it below the boiling point or the gelatin deactivates.

Strain over the rest of the cream and chill to set.

Stir a little red dye into the set beet caramel.

Core the apples, hollow out the sides without going all the way down so the base stays firm for the stick, fill with beet caramel, plug the top with a piece of apple and insert a stick.

For the coating, cook sugar, corn syrup and beet juice with no cream or butter, so it sets hard and crunchy, until thick and viscous.

Test drops in ice water: thin and dissolving is not ready; a soft ball is not there yet; turn off the heat when the drop holds a firm ball, as residual heat keeps cooking. At hard crack the droplet stays a little ball.

Let the bubbles settle so they do not show on the apples.

Dip each apple, tilt and swirl, then let it drip and twirl so no heavy foot of sugar forms at the bottom.

Leave to set; the bottom stays goopy and needs overnight.