Carin's Caramel Corn

A former employee of mine use to make divine caramel corn. She would take orders at work and then go home and make large batches and bring it to us all neatly bagged and sell it for some extra spending money. We were discussing this at work the other day and I said she had actually given me her recipe so I decided I would whip up a batch and surprise the girls on Monday with some of this delightful confection.

It couldn't be more simple to make but does take a time commitment of about 1 1/2 hours from start to finish and a large roasting pan to bake the caramel corn in to dry it out. The beauty of this recipe is that you don't have to worry about using a candy thermometer. It just boils for 5 minutes and it's done. It's fun to watch the mixture change in viscosity from a thin liquid to a molten lava. You will find the end result is a far more delicious product then what you can buy in a cardboard box.Carin's Caramel Corn

6 quarts popped corn (approximately 1 cup unpopped)

1 cup butter

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Put popped corn into a large roasting pan which has been sprayed with vegetable spray.In a fairly large saucepan, melt butter. Stir in sugar, syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in soda and vanilla. This will bubble up and double the volume in the pan. Pour all over popcorn and quickly mix well. Put roasting pan in oven for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove and cool completely. Store in airtight containers. This recipe can easily be doubled but be sure to use a large pan when cooking the caramel.