How to Make Caramel Popcorn

Today on Sugar Spun run .

I'll be showing you how to make caramel popcorn .

Hey , Sugar Spun bakers , Sam here and today I'm really excited to be back in the kitchen with you because this is the first video that I'm filming since having my son Luke .

So today we're doing a pretty easy recipe .

Hopefully the baby doesn't interrupt us .

We'll see , but it's also really good .

Super delicious .

I think you're going to love it .

Now to get started .

The first thing you'll want to do is get your oven preheated to 250 °F .

Next , you're going to need a standard sized cookie sheet and you'll want to line this with aluminum foil .

We'll just lightly grease this with a little bit of cooking spray and I like to work that in with a paper towel .

That way we have a nice even layer .

Now , the next thing you're going to need is 10 cups of popped popcorn .

Now , you can pop this popcorn yourself , leave it unsalted and unbuttered .

You can do that in an air popper in a cast iron dutch oven that would be fine .

Or you can use a store bought pre flavored popcorn that's gonna give this caramel corn a deeper richer flavor .

Either one is going to be totally fine and it's going to taste delicious .

So just whatever your preference is is fine .

Now , I'm just going to pour this onto our prepared baking sheet .

You just gonna layer this popcorn evenly over the baking pan and then we're gonna pop it in our oven .

It's ok if the oven's not at 250 degrees yet , we just want to keep this popcorn warm .

While we prepare our caramel coating , we want to do that because it's going to make it a lot easier to spread the caramel .

If the popcorn's already warm , I'm gonna drop this in the oven .

Our popcorn is staying nice and toasty .

So now we're going to head over to our stovetop .

You're going to need a medium sized sauce pan and you'll need one stick or one half cup of unsalted butter .

We're going to just cook this over medium heat until the butter is melted .

Once the butter is melted , we're going to add our brown sugar .

You're going to need one and a third cups of brown sugar total .

I like to use a blend of light brown sugar and dark brown sugar .

So I use one cup of light brown , a third cup of dark brown .

The dark brown just adds a little bit of extra depth of flavor .

I just like using the blend .

It also makes the color a little nicer .

We're also doing to add 1/4 cup of light corn syrup .

Now , some people don't like to use light corn syrup .

I'm not entirely sure why , because it's really not the same thing as high fructose corn syrup , which has a really bad reputation and this is absolutely necessary for making caramel corn .

I do not know of a substitute that would work .

Instead , this is going to give us that nice candied coating on top .

We're also going to need to add one half teaspoon of salt .

Now , if you are using a store bought microwave popcorn that's already been flavored .

Sometimes I'll cut this down just a little bit and use a scanned half teaspoon .

Instead , we're going to keep our heat on medium .

You do not want to crank up the heat at this point .

We're just gonna stir everything together and we're going to cook it until it comes to a boil .

Now , once this mixture is boiling , we're going to continue to cook it for three minutes .

I like to use a timer for this step and you want to stir it frequently .

So once you've cooked this for three minutes , we're going to remove it from heat and we have two key ingredients left to add one is 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract and the other is 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda .

The baking soda might seem like a strange ingredient , but it's going to help this caramel spread over the popcorn a little bit better and it's also going to help that candy coating be a little more brittle .

A little more snappy rather than chewy .

You don't want a chewy caramel coating that sticks to your teeth .

You want it to break a little bit under your teeth .

We'll just stir this together until the color is nice and uniform and everything's well combined .

Now , grab your popcorn out of the oven .

It should be nice and toasty and we'll drizzle this caramel over top that popcorn .

If you'd like to add nuts , you wanna add them at this point , you'll want a cup of nuts .

Your preferred kind is just fine .

Now , when I was a kid , I always used to get caramel corn with peanuts .

So that's what I'm adding here .

I'm just gonna Sprinkle it over the caramel .

Now , I want to use a spatula to stir the popcorn and the caramel and the nuts all together .

You want to get this popcorn as well coated as you can , but don't stress if you can't get it entirely coated .

I like to aim for about 75% of the popcorn coated .

At this point .

We'll be able to get the rest while we're cooking it .

I'll show you that in just a bit .

You wanna be gentle about stirring this popcorn too because you don't want to break it all up into small pieces and you don't wanna smash it .

So I like to use a spatula and kind of a gentle hand .

You also don't want there to be any puddles of caramel at the bottom .

So when I first poured the caramel on , it's gonna puddle right where I set it .

Make sure you scrape that up with your spatula and turn it into your popcorn .

That way you don't have any big globs of caramel .

All right .

Now we're going to return this tray to our 250 °F , preheated oven .

You'll want to place it on the center rack in the middle of your oven .

And we're going to bake it for about 40 to 45 minutes .

We're going to stop , take it out of the oven every 10 to 15 minutes and stir everything again .

So this has been cooking for 15 minutes now .

So we're going to use our spatula and stir everything again .

We'll be able to get some of that 25% of popcorn that we didn't get coated , coated here while we're doing it .

We're also encouraging this caramel corn to cook evenly .

That way it'll be nice and crisp when it's finished baking .

Sometimes that foil gets annoying , but I really recommend using it .

It makes cleanup so much easier and keeps you from ruining your baking pans .

All right .

Now , back to the oven for another 10 to 15 minutes .

Then we'll do the same thing .

After another 15 minutes .

We'll stir everything again .

Again , we're just trying to encourage even cooking .

You want to have those nice crisp caramel shells .

Let's just get everything moved around and broken up as much as you can take this back to the oven for another 15 minutes and then we'll be finished .

Now , after 45 minutes , our popcorn is finished cooking .

So I am going to just stir it one more time with the spatula just to make sure any pieces that are any big clumps get nicely broken up .

And we're going to let this cool completely on the baking sheet before we dig in .

Now , if you want to eat this while it's still warm , I don't really recommend that because it's going to be chewy .

You wanna wait for it to cool completely that way the caramel corn is nice and crisp .

You need that caramel to harden and it's not going to harden completely until it's cooled completely .

So let that sit before you dig in and that is how you make caramel popcorn at home .

If you guys try this recipe , I really want to hear what you think of it .

Let me know how you like it .

I always love hearing from you .

Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next time .

Hm .

That's good .