Nicely spiced, cinnamon and apple come together to make for a fine wing sauce; and a tasty snack or dinner.
Based on an old KFC recipe (we loved their candy apple wings!), these are pretty close, and much lighter, since I’ve baked the wings instead of frying, and just spritzed the lightly seasoned wings with a bit of olive oil.
For this version, I’ve used apple jelly, but, if you want to bump up the cinnamon a tad, apple butter works a treat, too.
INGREDIENTS
Candy Apple Sauce:
•2 (5.5 oz) boxes Red Hots candy
•1 (18 oz) jar apple jelly
•1 cup Fireball whisky
•3 tbsp butter
•1/2 cup brown sugar
•1 tsp black pepper
•1 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1 tsp sea salt
•1 tbsp Sherry Peppers Sauce*
•1 tsp Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Pepper Sauce – or your fave hot sauce, to taste
Chicken:
•3-1/2 lb wings
•1/4 cup flour
•1 tsp black pepper
•1 tsp Aleppo pepper
•1 tsp Seasoned Salt
•1/2 tsp garlic powder
•Olive oil
*No Sherry Peppers Sauce? No Problem! Simply add a bit of decent sherry (none of that “cooking” stuff) and a dash or three of your fave hot sauce, to taste
Stir the Candy Apple Sauce ingredients together in a large pan over low heat until the brown sugar and the candies have melted -this could take a while, those candies are tough.
A note on the Red Hots: around here, at least, they were kinda hard to find, so I ended up ordering them on line. You can use another cinnamon candy, but some of them that I have tried in the past don’t really melt at all. They release the cinnamon flavor and red color into the sauce, but you have to pick out a bunch of opaque white capsules before using.
Let the sauce simmer for 4o minutes, stirring often. Not all of even these candies will melt, so don’t fret about a few stragglers.
Heat your oven to 400º.
Add the flour, peppers, Seasoned Salt, and garlic powder to a gallon-sized zipper bag along with the chicken wings and shake to coat the wings evenly.
Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and fit with a rack.
Arrange your seasoned wings in a single layer on the rack and lightly spray both sides with olive oil.
Pop into the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the wings are done.
Remove from the oven, transfer to a large bowl, and toss with enough of the sauce to nicely coat each wing. You might have leftover sauce, so, bonus – more wings faster next time!
Rearrange the wings in a single layer on the rack and pop back into the oven for 15 minutes more.
Remove from the oven and enjoy as you will. Ranch dressing is a nice addition, but not really required.