My Dad made these many years ago. He used wooden dowels and drilled holes into the apples to put on the end of each branch.
One large dowel was the trunk and then drill holes into the large dowel for smaller dowel ( branches ) The large trunk dowel is inserted into a wooden base. Apples go on the ends of the horizontal branches. We pained the dowels green. Put a sprig of greenery in the top.
We called it a Swedish Christmas tree. Not sure if that is the correct name.