Oven Caramel Corn

By augusj

Ingredients

• 1 cup unpopped popcorn (makes about 5 quarts popped)
• 2 cups Brown Sugar
• 1 cup Butter
• 1/2 cup Corn syrup (we used 'light' the original recipe calls for 'dark')
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Handful of peanuts (optional).

Details

Preparation time 15mins
Cooking time 60mins

Preparation

Step 1

Combine the Brown Sugar, Butter, Corn Syrup and Salt. Once all melted together, bring this gooey goodness to a boil and hold the boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add the Baking Soda (this will cause the mixture to foam). Keep stirring while the foam builds. Next, pour evenly over the popped corn. Mix as well as you can...don't worry about total coverage, it will even out in the next step.

Bake in a preheated oven at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. Take out and stir. Back into the oven for another 15 minutes and stir. You can experiment at this stage. The original recipe calls for a total of 4 cycles (1 hour). For some, this might be too long. I have found out that after one cycle, the caramel is "more chewy" but the flavor is not quite there. The longer you keep the popcorn in the oven, the more brittle it will be and the sugars will take on a more "burnt" caramel flavor. It is up to you! We usually pull ours after 3 cycles (45 minutes). You can add peanuts at an time during this stage.

Cool on waxed paper. Don't waste any time getting from the oven to the waxed paper...the caramel has a tendency to harden.

Tip: get water into that pan as soon as you have the caramel corn out and onto the waxed paper...if you wait too long, you might be looking for an Instructable on how to remove "barnacle like caramel" from a pan.