Twix Caramel Corn

By Texaschef11

Ingredients

• 16 cups popped popcorn (I use the 94% fat free Kettle Corn…it has a nice salty sweet base)
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup (if can’t find use corn syrup)
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 16 caramels, unwrapped, and chopped into four pieces (or half a bag of caramel bits)
• 14 sticks (2 come in a package), chopped up into pieces, I did it so I got 5 pieces out of each stick

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 250F. Spray two baking sheets with nonstick baking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl (the largest heat safe bowl you have in the house) put popcorn in it. Set aside.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the butter, sugars, golden syrup, lemon juice and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter and sugars melt together.

Increase the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil. Boil gently until the mixture reaches the hard crack stage (300F on a candy thermometer) 6-9 minutes.

Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla and the baking soda. They syrup with bubbles and foam with the baking soda is added, simply stir until it subsides.

Immediately pour the caramel over the popcorn mixture and stir with a large wooden spoon until a caramel glaze completely coast all the popped corn and nuts.

Divide the caramel corn between the prepared baking sheets and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and stir and flip (I use a heat proof spatula) the caramel corn. Bake for another 20 minutes. Do the same again. This time before putting in oven, sprinkle in caramel pieces and Twix pieces. Make sure that they are on the corn and not the pan. Place into oven for another 10 minutes.

Let caramel corn cool completely. Store in a tightly covered container for up to a week.