Festive Carmel Corn

Festive Carmel Corn

This recipe creates a delicious caramel corn for holiday celebrating.

Ingredients: 

3/4 cup popcorn for popping
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 cups packed brown sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
8 oz. butter
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions                                                                                             Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

In a large, deep pan, heat the canola oil and pop 6 quarts of popcorn. Get rid of all unpopped kernels. Spread popcorn on two baking sheets.

In a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, cream of tartar and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and add the baking soda; the mixture will puff up as the baking soda is stirred into it. Pour the caramel evenly over the popped corn and immediately mix thoroughly with a large metal spoon or plastic spatula. This is more of a folding motion than stirring to coat the popcorn with the caramel.

Place both pans in the oven on middle shelves and bake for 1 hour (this is what crisps up the caramel corn), rotating the pans to opposite shelves halfway through the baking time and turning the caramel corn over with a spatula every 20 minutes for even baking.

Immediately turn the caramel corn out onto sheets of waxed paper and when cool enough to handle, break into pieces.

Crunch on the caramel corn right away, and if you can part with some, in lovely container with a ribbon on it, you’ve got a great gift for a friend.