Caramel Corn

Because my family is preparing for an upcoming vacation with lengthy hours on the road, my sister and I thought it would be fabulous to make a special, tasty snack!

I absolutely love this recipe for caramel corn, because it is sticky, sweet, slightly crunchy, extremely caramely delightfulness! Perhaps best of all, however,  is that there is ZERO corn syrup involved! (If corn syrup is that terrible for you, you'd think that it would at least make whatever it was in fabulously tasty; recipes without it  are actually so much better!)

As a forewarning: make sure to prepare a lot, because you will be nibbling on it constantly; it will disappear in a nano second! 

Caramel Corn

From "http://www.amysfoodroom.com"

  16 cups popped corn, any unpopped kernels discarded, in a very large bowl
The caramel:
2 cups (1 lb.) brown sugar
1 cup unsalted organic butter
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. In a large, heavy saucepan combine the brown sugar, butter, water and salt and bring to a boil. Continue boiling moderately for about 5 minutes until mixture starts to thicken.

(This is the "soft ball stage", 234 degrees F on a candy thermometer. If you don't have a candy thermometer, you can drop a 1/2 teaspoon of the caramel into a glass of cold water to check if it comes together into a blob when you touch it with your finger.)

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the vanilla and baking soda. The caramel will bubble and puff up as you do this; keep stirring. Working quickly, but carefully (since the caramel is extremely hot), pour the caramel over the popped corn kernels and stir gently to coat.

3. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line two cookie sheet pans with parchment paper. Divide the caramel corn between the two pans and bake for 45 minutes. Stir several times during baking.  Pour onto parchment paper, cool, and then enjoy! Store in an airtight container.

We stir our caramel corn every 15 minutes during the baking process, and usually bake it in a very large roasting pan.

Also, if there is any extra caramel leftover in the pan after pouring it over the popcorn, we like to spoon little bits of it into cold glasses of water and make caramel candy :)

Bon Appetit!

God bless, Julia