These Vintage Candied Apples are a retro classic that deserves a serious comeback. Just three ingredients — sliced apples, Red Hots, and water — baked together until the candy melts into a glossy cinnamon syrup that turns everything a stunning deep red. You can serve them warm over vanilla ice cream for dessert or alongside chicken or pork as a sweet, simple side. Either way, they disappear fast.

Why You’ll Love This

Only 3 ingredients — apples, Red Hots, and water. That’s it.
Works as a dessert or a side dish — warm over vanilla ice cream or alongside pork and chicken, it holds its own either way.
That color. The deep red the candy turns everything is almost unreal — in the best possible way.
Makeahead friendly — these reheat beautifully and actually taste great cold straight from the fridge.
Crowdpleaser every time — people always ask for the recipe, and they’re always surprised by how simple it is.

A Few Notes on the Ingredients

The apples: I’ve used Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Fuji, and once a bag of mystery apples from my sisterinlaw’s tree that I’m pretty sure were some old variety nobody grows commercially anymore. They all worked. Granny Smith holds its shape the best if you want cleaner slices; something sweeter like Fuji will get a little softer and lean more dessert-y. I peel them because I find the texture of cooked apple skin unpleasant, but if you don’t mind it, you could probably leave the peel on. Probably.

The Red Hots: Don’t substitute. I know it’s tempting to think you could use some other cinnamon candy or maybe just add a bunch of cinnamon extract to sugar syrup, but it won’t be the same. The Red Hots have something — a particular intensity, a slight burn — that you can’t replicate with anything else I’ve tried. One box. The 5.5 oz one. That’s all you need.

Water: Just tap water is fine. I’ve seen versions that use apple juice or even a splash of red wine, and while I’m sure those are perfectly lovely, they’re not this recipe. The Red Hots do enough work on their own.

Ingredients

• 6 to 8 apples, peeled and sliced (I usually do about 7 — just depends on the size)
• 1 box Red Hots, 5.5 oz
• 1½ cups water (maybe a little less if your dish is on the smaller side)
• Vanilla ice cream, if you’re going the dessert route

Let’s Make Them

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Nothing tricky there.

Peel and slice your apples — I do about ¼inch slices, though honestly I eyeball it — and spread them out in a 9×13 glass baking dish. It doesn’t have to be perfect. They’re going to shift around anyway once everything starts cooking.

Sprinkle the whole box of Red Hots over the top, then pour the water over everything. At this point it looks a little alarming. The candy just sits there on top of the apples, hard and red and seemingly unmoved by the whole situation. Don’t worry. The oven will sort it out.

Bake for 45 minutes, pulling it out every 15 minutes to give everything a good stir. This is important — you want to make sure the candy melts evenly and coats all the apples, and if you skip the stirring you’ll end up with a weird concentration of red in one corner and pale apples in another. Not the end of the world, but the stirring only takes a second so just do it.

By the time you pull it out at the end, the liquid will have thickened slightly, the apples will be tender, and the color — oh, the color. It’s this deep, saturated red that looks almost artificial, except it’s just candy. My daughter, the first time she helped me make these, stopped and said “Mom, that doesn’t look real,” and I said, “I know, isn’t it great?”

Let them cool a bit before you serve them, or don’t. They’re good warm. They’re honestly also surprisingly good cold, straight from the fridge the next day, which I discovered by accident when I was standing in the kitchen at 6:47 in the morning not quite awake yet.

Variations

My sister makes these with a splash of apple cider in place of some of the water, which gives it a little more depth. I’ve tried it her way and it’s good — maybe slightly richer — but then you have to buy apple cider for one tablespoon and deal with the rest of the jug, so I usually don’t bother.

I’ve also seen people add a small pat of butter to the dish before baking, which I think makes it a little more indulgenttasting. Could be nice if you’re going full dessert mode.

If you want to skip the ice cream and serve these as a side dish — and I really do recommend this, especially with pork — just let them cool down a bit more so they’re warm rather than piping hot, and spoon them into a bowl alongside the main. They cut through richness beautifully.

One thing I tried once that I’m still not sure about: I added a handful of fresh cranberries along with the apples. It looked beautiful, all those reds together, but the tartness threw off the balance a little. Might work better if you added a bit of sugar to compensate. File that under experiments I haven’t fully concluded yet.

Storage

These keep well in the fridge, covered, for about four or five days — maybe longer, I’m not usually scientific about it. The liquid will gel up a little as it chills, which is actually kind of nice. You can reheat them gently on the stovetop or in the microwave, or, as I mentioned, just eat them cold.

One time I made a double batch thinking I’d freeze half, and then I just… didn’t. We ate them over the course of a week, and I have no regrets. I’m not sure how they’d do in the Freezer, to be honest — I suspect the texture of the apples would get a little strange, but I’ve never actually tested it. If you try it, let me know how it goes.