When you think about nostalgic, classic images of Christmas-one that pops into my head is of people decorating their trees with apples and pine cones and strands of popcorn. Something about popcorn just goes with the holidays (and...admittedly....I just love popcorn always. But I digress.) Up until recently, I wasn't a huge fan of caramel corn. I'm unsure why. I think because I'm generally not a caramel fan, so I assumed. But last summer, while I was filming You Can't Kill Stephen King in Maine, we were provided with free popcorn by Michele's Totally Awesome Gourmet Popcorn. I became an addict. So, when I recently saw this recipe on Sing for Your Supper, I knew it was time to try my hand at making some on my own. It was so amazing I can't even say. Michael had his work friends impressed and he and I couldn't stop munching on this stuff! This is also perfect for holiday entertaining-put out a bowl of this caramel corn, at any party really, and that bowl will disappear within moments. Now go! Make this and do some holiday stuff. I'm currently watching some of my favorite Christmas movies (on right now is a TV movie-"Once Upon A Christmas"). :)
(Holiday Recipe Exchange posts: Week 1 Parts 1
and 2,
Week
3, Week
Six, Week
Seven, Week
Nine , and Week 10 Parts 1
and 2,Week
11 Parts 1
and 2, Week 12 Part 1 and
2 and Week 14 Part 1)
Caramel Corn
From Sing For Your Supper
Ingredients:
- 6 quarts popped corn or 3 bags popped microwave popcorn (I used Newman's Own Natural)
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup light corn syrup
- 1 cup butter
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tsp. baking soda
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
- Cook sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and baking soda.
It'll puff up and look really cool, like this.
- Pour over popcorn and stir to coat.
- Place popcorn in a very large roasting pan or over 2 (or 3) baking sheets, lined with greased foil.
- Bake at 250, taking out and stirring ever 15 minutes, for a total of 45 minutes.
- Let cool and break apart.
NOTE: This makes A LOT of popcorn. Too much to fit into my largest bowl (which is huge). So I had to pour the caramel on in batches-which eventually led to the caramel cooling and de-puffing. Doing a half batch would solve that problem, but I'm still brainstorming a better way to mix it all, preferably at once. (Because...well....this stuff is addictive and I don't want to halve the recipe) If you have any ideas I'm listening! :P
This whole container plus a large Ziploc bag were full of the caramel corn. And yet we still managed to polish it off within a few days.
There's the culprit! Caught him red handed!
...hehe
But seriously, we both ate a lot of it.
Come join
the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife
Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Edgeware.
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