Caramel Corn
Crunchy and sweet homemade caramel corn is studded with peanuts and makes for the best snack! Freshly popped corn, brown sugar, maple syrup, and butter come together for something truly delicious.
I woke up from strange (seriously, strange) dreams to the sound of pouring rain, but miraculously the sun came out and is now shining so strongly I had to close the blinds. I am working from home so in the early-morning gloom I was particularly happy to remember the loaf of delicious Acme whole wheat walnut bread I’d picked up yesterday at the Ferry Building. (To eat with homemade blackberry jam, of course.)
So I made tea and toast for breakfast (I may have also had it for lunch) and left my pajamas on for awhile.
Then I carefully placed a flourless chocolate cake (or, a ‘Gateaux Victoire’) in its water bath to bake for a dinner party tomorrow night.
(Here it is post-oven.)
And I popped popcorn for caramel corn for my sweetie, because he likes it and because why not? I haven’t really cooked in a sort of leisurely way in a long time — and I even, gasp, pulled out my real camera, which felt very, very good — and Fridays are nice days for doing that in between all the editing. It was a bit of a massive work-week, and so I’m gently sliding into the weekend with some sun, some cake, and some more tea. There are two full days coming up to relax and enjoy.
The holidays loom. To ease the bite — or as an edible gift — consider making from-scratch caramel corn. It’s pretty simple, tastes better than anything you can buy, and is sure to please. It could even provide Thanksgiving-cooking sustenance if you can turn your thoughts there already. I’m trying to; the only thing I’m sure of right now is that I’ll be baking sweet potato biscuits and making cauliflower soup. But after all, there’s still a few more weeks …
For now:
Homemade Caramel Corn
Ingredients
- 10 cups freshly popped popcorn
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup halved peanuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Pop the popcorn: in a large pot, heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil over high heat. Add about 1/2-3/4 cup popcorn kernels and shake. Cover, and shake occasionally until popcorn is popped. Oil a large bowl and dump the popcorn in.
- In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Whisk in the brown sugar, maple syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla. Quickly pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, distributing it evenly. Stir in the peanuts, and transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn, and serve.
If I come back to San Francisco, can you whip me up a batch of this yummy goodness? Seriously, ALL your recipes look to die for! And your food photography is divine, too.
I am also easing my way into the weekend after a planned long weekend of backpacking was cancelled due to weather (pesky AZ dust storms!). I took the day off work anyway and have enjoyed drinking lots of tea, cleaning, writing and cranking up the tunes on the stereo. Happy weekend to you!
I was just going to write about how happy I will be to make this popcorn this weekend and leisurely eat it after such a busy week, when I remembered I can’t eat popcorn at the moment (wisdom teeth were pulled last week), and so I will have to put this on the ‘to-make when my mouth is healed’ list that is growing larger by the day. I LOVE caramel corn and made it once before but it didn’t come out so well. Yours looks perfect; just coated enough with the caramel. I like that you used maple syrup instead of corn syrup, too. I can’t wait to try this!
Have a fun, relaxing weekend :)
PS. Love your pictures!