Caramel Popcorn

Several months ago I stumbled across Paula Deen’s recipe for caramel popcorn.  Normally, I am a tad apprehensive about making homemade caramel..it burns easily, it gets too hard, or never sets well.  Add in the popcorn, and it shrivels up and is just plain nasty.  But, this recipe, this recipe is different!  I have never made a bad batch, pinky promise!  I made my first several batches for Blogfete, and it.was.amazing! I made another few batches, and it was gone nearly as quick I as I made it.  My son jokes that my mom has a “problem”.  I sent a quick email off to Paula Deen and much to my surprise and delight, I was given permission to share the recipe here! But, I wanted to share it with my own photos of the recipe in progress.

Ingredients:

* 1 cup of butter

* 2 cups of packed brown sugar

* 1/2 cup of light corn syrup

* 1 teaspoon of salt

* 1 teaspoon of baking soda

* 8 cups of popped popcorn

Popcorn pre-caramel

Butter and packed brown sugar

Bubbling caramel

I make the popcorn using kernels for an air popper or movie theater style machine.  I put a scoop in a brown paper bag and seal it with washi tape (yeah, I am a party girl) and pop it in the microwave like the regular microwave popcorn.  You can add spray oil and salt if you want, but I pop it plain.  After it is popped, I pour it into my roasting pan, being sure to take out the partially popped kernels.

Pre-heat the oven to 200*

Caramel popcorn in the oven

Put the top 4 ingredients in a large pot and boil on medium heat for 5 minutes (keep an eye on it, making sure not to let it boil over) Add baking soda and stir well.  Immediately pour over your popped popcorn and put it in the oven for 1 hour.  This is very, very important, pull the tray of popcorn out every 15 minutes and stir it.  When finished, pour popcorn onto a sheet of wax paper and spread out evenly, try not to eat it all in one sitting…If you feel like sharing, call a friend or two, but be warned, it’s kinda like the if you give a moose a muffin story…they will want more, and they will be unrelenting.

The MOST AMAZING Caramel Popcorn EVER

Enjoy!

Many thanks to Paula Deen for allowing me to share this special recipe!

Tags : caramel corn, Everyday Party Magazine, Paula Deen, recipe