rinse apples under cold water and stand on rack until completely dry, do not rub with a cloth.

grease an oven tray.

push a skewer three quarters of the way into each apple at the stem end.

combine sugar, water, glucose syrup and colouring in a heavy-based saucepan.

stir over heat, without boiling until sugar is dissolved.

boil uncovered without stirring about 20 minutes or until mixture reaches a crack stage (remove sugar syrup from heat, allow bubbles to subside, drop a teaspoon of syrup into cold water, it should set hard and be hard to crack with fingers).

remove syrup from heat, stand pan in baking dish of warm water about 1 minute or until bubbles subside.

remove pan from water, tilt pan, dip and rotate an apple slowly in toffee until apple is completely coated.

twirl apple round a few times before placing onto greased oven tray to set.

pepeat with remaining apples and toffee.