Despite the snow(!), it was in fact Opening Day on Monday. In my family, we celebrate with hot dogs and cracker jack for dinner. I'm a sucker for a food theme, what can I say? Don't feel sad that you missed it, you can still whip some up to celebrate the home opener tomorrow!
You may recall that I had a tray of plain microwaved popcorn lying around. To that I added a couple handfuls of peanuts.
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| This is a little less popcorn than I usually do so... |
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| I added a little more peanuts. No biggie, it's just caramel corn. |
All you have to do now is preheat your oven to 250* and make some caramel!
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| Team photo: Popcorn, peanuts, butter, brown sugar, Karo syrup, salt, vanilla. Not pictured: Baking soda |
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| Put the butter, brown sugar, syrup and salt in a saucepan over medium heat. |
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| Let it all melt together and keep stirring... |
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| until it boils. |
This part is a little scary, I won't lie to you. But let's just all hold it together and we'll get through it. You can't touch this for 4 minutes when it starts boiling. I set a timer on the stove and WALK AWAY. It's too stressful for me to watch. But it did come back to take this picture for you:
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| See why I can't watch? |
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| Okay, we made it! Remove from the heat and add |
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| baking soda and vanilla (always add vanilla off heat) |
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| It will look a little creamy now. |
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| Mix it around to coat the popcorn as best you can. |
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| Don't pour it all in the middle like this. I was trying to take a picture and pour at the same time. |
Don't stress out if it's not perfectly coated. You will have a couple more shots at it. Put it in the oven for 1 hour and take it out to stir it around every 15-20 minutes. You'll see the caramel pools at the bottom, so it's easiest to stir by scooping under it and flipping it over.
Once it comes out, give it one last scrape off the pan and let it cool. Break it up with your hands and store whatever the vultures didn't eat hot off the pan in an airtight container. Good luck with that.
About the recipe: You can play around with this quite a bit. Feel free to switch out the peanuts for a different kind (a mix would be nice) or leave them out entirely. You can drizzle chocolate over the top once it's cool, or add pretzels, or even candy! (This crazy woman adds twix bars. You can't know how right that is.) This would make a nice homemade Christmas gift, hostess gift or bake sale item if you know how to wrap things up pretty-like. In any case, it's a good trick to have in your arsenal so give it a try. You never know when it will come in handy, and you'll feel more confident if you've done it before.
The recipe (inspired by this one)
1/3-1/2c popcorn kernels, popped
1/2c peanuts
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4c light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 250*
Spread popcorn and peanuts out onto large rimmed baking sheet. Melt together the next 4 ingredients over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Allow to boil, untouched for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Immediately pour mixture over the popcorn and stir to coat. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool and store in an airtight container.
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