Caramel Corn

Typically during the holiday season we like to make rather than buy something for our friends and family. We do this for several reasons: it is riduculous to send people crappy gifts that they don't want or need, we are relatively crafty people and we have the ability to cobble something together; we don’t have a lot of money to spend on presents and making is usually cheaper than buying; and we are of the mindset that crafting something is a little more personal and perhaps thoughtful. I guess usually we do something edible because it is Renee's favorite combo of crafty AND useful. One year it was a cookie mix that recipients just needed to add wet ingredients to and then bake. In 2009 we made pickle relish and spicy pineapple salsa. This year we decided to try caramel corn, as it seemed appropriately festive and we had never tried making it before so we were interested to see how it came out. Plus we are popcorn making masters The recipe we used was from a website called smitten kitchen, and if I remember correctly we didn’t make any modifications except for half of the batch was non-spicy. It wasn’t particularly difficult to execute but was extreemly dangerous. The molten carmel could easily burn through flesh to the bone. It required a watchful eye – if the caramel mixture got too brown or not brown enough, it didn’t taste right and got too hard too fast. We made a LOT of popcorn so Renee was in charge of popping the batches of corn and I was in charge of making the caramel mixture.

 

In the original recipe, only one batch of corn and one caramel mixture gets made; we had to do I think 4 of each. This made for more experimentation to find that perfect balance but also more chances to burn the caramel and ourselves. Our first batch came out the best. We liked the results and got pretty good feedback from our gift recipients. If you like caramel corn definitely try this recipe out and see what you think, as I said it’s not difficult, the directions are pretty straightforward, but getting it just right will probably take several tries. That’s the fun of making rather than buying!