Salted Caramel Popcorn

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Movie Night Snacks

Dish: Salted Caramel Popcorn

I have never been a fan of popcorn, especially the ones sold at the movies or even the microwave variety. Growing up my parents didn't want us to eat outside food, so they never bought us anything when we went to the movies. So I never associated going to movies with popcorn or food. I continue to do that with my kids too. My older one never asked for it, lets see what the little one does.

I had a really bad popcorn when one of my friends bought a big tub of it and it was just so terrible that it ended my already non-existent relation with movie popcorn. Good thing with most of the non-Indian movies is that they are short and even before you realize you want to munch on something the movie is over. But Indian movies force you to buy snacks to kill time and money.
On the other hand the smell of popcorn being made in the microwave makes me nauseous, don't know why and I've never bought any of that.
Anyway, I finally popped my own popcorn and this yummy caramel popcorn. I bookmarked this recipe from Sandhya's space and have been planning to make it ever since.

Making caramel scares me, but in this recipe, the caramel is more like a sauce and there's no need to worry about cooking till the correct caramel color is achieved. Just follow the recipe and you have a perfect caramel ready to be used. I added just a little bit of sea salt while baking to give a nice balance to the otherwise sweet caramel taste.

Even as a self proclaimed popcorn hater, I loved this a LOT and couldn't stop myself from over-snacking on it. I'm even warming up to making even flavored popcorn, thanks to the wonderful ideas from the fellow BMers (how about some garlic butter & mozzarella or cinnamon-sugar flavored ones -- mmmm, yumm).

Recipe adapted from here:

Ingredients: 

Corn Kernels to pop - ¼cup
Nuts of choice like Peanuts or whole almonds - ¼cup (I skipped nuts)

For the Caramel:
Unsalted butter - 6tbsp
Light brown sugar - ⅔cup
Light Corn syrup - 3tbsp
Vanilla extract - ½tsp
Baking soda - ¼tsp
Sea Salt - ½tsp (optional)

Method:

• Make Popcorn: In a large saucepan, heat 2tbsp oil and couple of corn kernels. Cover and once the corn in the pan starts to pop, add the remaining corn, cover and let all of the corn pop. Turn off the heat once the popping subsides, remove the popcorn into a large mixing bowl.
• Add nuts (peanuts or almonds) to the popcorn and mix well.
• Preheat the oven to 250°F.Grease a large baking sheet and set aside. 
• Measure out baking soda and vanilla extract and keep ready. Once the caramel gets going, it will be a very quick process and you don't want to leave it unattended for too long -- so better to keep all the ingredients ready and handy.
• Make the caramel: In a large saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Let the sugar melt on low flame, then increase the flame to medium and let the caramel boil while stirring continuously to prevent sticking to the bottom. Boil for 4~5 minutes.
• Take it off the heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Stir vigorously. The mixture will become bubbly and frothy -- make sure to use a large enough pan to avoid spill over.
• Pour the caramel over the popcorn and sprinkle the sea salt on top. Mix everything to combine. It is not possible to coat popcorn evenly because caramel thickens as it cools. But once baked, it will be easy to mix.
• Transfer the popcorn mixture into the prepared baking pan and bake for 1 hour. Every 15 minutes, remove the baking sheet from the oven and give the popcorn a good mix. 
• Remove the popcorn from the oven and let cool. Store in an airtight container and enjoy!!

 

Lets check out what my fellow marathoners have cooked today for BM# 53.