Caramel Corn Recipe

There was a discussion about making caramel corn, and how fraught with peril the process can be.  If I ever write a cookbook, ‘Fraught with Peril’ should be the title.   I had all of the ingredients and was duly warned about deflating, burning, and the horror of clean up. 

Let’s tackle deflating, first.  That was the easiest.  You have to use plain old popping corn – not microwave popcorn.  It’s cheap, it’s simple, and it’s additive free.  My bottle said to pop 1/2 cup of corn in 3 tbs of oil.  I didn’t need that much, so I popped 1/4 cup in 1 tbs of oil in my 4 1/2 quart pot.  Why less oil?  Because I wasn’t hoping to have enormous quantities of seasoned salt stick to the oil, I wanted caramel to adhere to the corn.  It was about 4 cups more popped corn than I needed, so the birds got a treat. 

Next, the caramel.  Yes, it can go from beautiful to burned in the blink of an eye if you aren’t careful.  Do you have a newer stove with a “power burner” or one that puts out more BTUs than the others?  This is NOT the burner to use – move your pot to a slower burner.  Now, I’m assuming that you already have out your butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt – don’t forget the patience, feel free to use extra. 

Why, yes, that is the same pot I used to pop the corn.  I just wiped it out and kept on going.

Steady and slow wins the race here.  There’s no pressure at all while you’re standing there stirring it, but when you have to leave it alone for 5 minutes?  Scary.  Don’t leave – don’t blink.  See where my heat is set?   I cooked the caramel at this temperature for the whole time.  The heat builds – don’t be tempted to help it along.

Now it’s time to put in the baking soda.  Do NOT put in cornstarch like I did.  Both containers are yellow – I don’t know what happened in my head.  My caramel was a little thicker than I hoped.  So, I said a little prayer that it would loosen in the oven and allow me to cover a bit more of the corn.

It came out fine.  More than fine.  Crispy, buttery, caramely…take it away from me!

And about that clean up?  Sugar dissolves in water – no big deal, it just takes more of that patience.  If it’s on the edge, just drape a wet cloth over the edge, letting one end hang in water in the pot to keep the wicking action going.  You could also spend the afternoon chipping it off and eating it…

This is gluten free, but not casein free.  I’m not sure if a butter replacement would work as well (anyone?). 

If you need a sweet treat on  your menu, add caramel corn to your meal plan!