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If a visual will help, watch the Instagram Reel for this recipe.

Dehydrate the ground beef.

• Cook the ground beef in your cooking pan on the stovetop until done. Don't add any fat while cooking.
• Once the ground beef is cooked, drain out all of the fat.
• Transfer the cooked ground beef to a plate. Pat the beef dry with a towel to soak up as much of the remaining fat as you can.
• Transfer the ground beef on top of a piece of parchment paper on your baking sheet. Spread the pieces out in as thin of a layer as possible to promote even baking.
• Dehydrate the ground beef in the oven at 200 degrees for 3-4 hours. You may have to rotate the pieces while cooking. I usually swirl everything around with a fork every 30 minutes or so or when I remember. The pieces should be hard and crunchy when done. I typically keep an eye on mine at about the 2-hour mark. Mine was done right around 3 hours.
• Once the beef is fully dehydrated, remove the beef pieces from the oven and let them cool.
• Note: make sure the beef pieces are fully cooled before adding them to the apples.

Make the caramel apples.

• Pour your date syrup into a small mixing bowl. You don't need to measure the amount as whatever you don't use can be poured back into the container. I only used about 1/5 of the bottle to coat all of my apples.
• Pull or cut the stems off of each apple, and insert the apple sticks (pointy side first) into the area where the stem was. Push the stick in until the apple feels sturdy to hold up using the stick.
• Hold on to the stick and roll your apples in the bowl of date syrup, fully coating the apple. Hold the apple upside down (stick will be on top and pointing up) and allow the date syrup to run off the apple completely, forming a smooth glaze.

Add the dehydrated beef to the apples.

• Instead of rolling the apple in the beef pieces, I recommend adding them by hand.
• Note: these are messy! The date syrup is not hefty like your standard thick and goopy caramel and doesn't hold add-ons as well. While eating, I had to add more date syrup to mine (squirted it onto the apple straight from the bottle before each bite) and top it with some of the loose beef pieces that didn't stick to the apples.
• Note: you may have some leftover beef pieces. These are great eaten alone or even with the date syrup. You can also use the leftovers to make my Animal-Based Cereal, Animal-Based Beef Cookies, or Banana Beef Muffins.
• If you need a holding place for the apples before enjoying them, place the finished apples inside the paper cupcake liners.

Serve and enjoy!

• Note: these can be stored in the fridge, but I highly recommend eating them fresh. The date syrup firms up a bit in the fridge, but not much.