Homemade Caramel Popcorn

Enticing, yes?

My friend Amy and I embarked on this adventure a few days ago, and it was SO fun! Be warned though: once you start eating this stuff, you won’t be able to stop…cause it’s way better than the store bought stuff.

Firstly, did you know you can pop corn on the stove? In a pot. Without a microwave.

Seriously I might have squealed like a small child when I witnessed this. If you’ve never done this before, you must try it. So fantastical. Now we used Amy’s Grandma’s super secret recipe, but some Googling revealed that a lot of other folks have figured out how to make this tasty treat as well. The one I’ll share with you is pretty darn close from All Recipes, but we do have some notes for you

First you’ll need to pop your pop corn. We made around 6 quarts by popping in batches. Get out your biggest stockpot with a lid and put 1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil in the bottom. Add 1 cup popping corn and 1 tsp salt to the oil and turn the heat on high. Put the lid on the pot, and start shaking it back and forth over the burner so the kernels don’t burn. In a few minutes, you’ll start to hear popping! Keep shaking until you hear the popping slow down (similar to watching it in the micro). Dump the popcorn into a large bowl, rinse out your pot, and make another batch until you have enough popped corn. This recipe could easily be scaled. Now for the gooey part

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 250. Melt the butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a saucepan stirring constantly over medium heat. Bring to a boil, continuing to stir for 4-5 minutes until gooey and fragrant. Note: Most recipes will tell you not to stir during the boil. This is crazy. 

Remove the caramel from the heat and slowly add the baking soda and vanilla, continuing to stir. Pour over your popped corn, using long spoons to toss the popcorn until it’s coated. Spread out the popcorn onto greased (or Reynolds non-stick foil coated) jelly roll pans (cookie sheets with sides??), it will probably take 4 pans at least. Bake 45-60 minutes, stirring every 15. Check to make sure it doesn’t get too brown after each toss, we found it depends a lot on the pans (we combined some of mine and some of hers). In general I thought closer to 45 minutes yielded the best result.

Let the popcorn cool completely (or drizzling melted semi-sweet chocolate on it while it’s still warm, you know, if you’re feeling crazy). Store in airtight ziplocks…but it probably won’t last long!