#1,718: Snicker's Popcorn

I had a bag of Snickers that I need to get out of my house (so I stopped eating them!!) so I made this super simple recipe to take to book club with me this week.  It was so simple to make and my kids were big fans of this!  I purposely brought it in a foil pan so I could leave it behind.  This is good stuff!  :)  Personally it probably would be better with the peanuts, but I didn't have any on hand and didn't want to run to the store so I just omitted.  The peanuts would be a personal preference addition though.

8 quarts air popped corn (about 2 cups of kernels)

1 cup salted butter

2 cups light brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup salted peanuts (I omitted)

30 "Fun Size" Snickers bars coarsely chopped

3 oz melted semi sweet chocolate (optional) (I added some mini chocolate chips to add a little more chocolate)

Preheat oven to 200. 

Over medium heat boil butter, brown sugar, salt and corn syrup for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in your baking soda.  Pour over your popcorn and stir to coat evenly.

Transfer to waxed paper lined counter and sprinkle peanuts on top. Stir until all is coated evenly.

Transfer popcorn into a large roasting pan and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and stir in your coarsely chopped Snickers. Return to oven for 3 more minutes so the Snickers begin to melt slightly into the popcorn.

Remove from pan and transfer popcorn back to wax paper to cool.  Drizzle melted chocolate on top of popcorn if desired.

Let set and store in an airtight container.

#728: Soft Caramel Popcorn

This is NOT caramel corn.  You know, that hard, crunchy, sweet popcorn.  No, this is CARAMEL popcorn.  It soft, it's sticky, it's gooey...and it is yummy!  This was really easy to make.  By the time I was done popping all of the bags of popcorn, the caramel was just about done. 

1 C. Brown Sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 C. light corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 bags popped popcorn
Melt all the ingredients in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Once caramel is boiling cook for approximately two minutes stirring constantly.  Pour over popcorn and still to cover.  Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

#480: Brown Paper Bag Popcorn

Several weeks ago I saw a blog about making popcorn in the microwave using plain popcorn kernels and a brown paper lunch bag.  I LOVE popcorn.  The girls LOVE popcorn.  So I was very excited to try this.  Unfortunately I didn't have any brown paper lunch bags here so I had to put this recipe off.  Eventually I brought some home from school and today we tried this out for lunch.  I saw an Alton Brown recipe which uses olive oil and popcorn salt so that's the recipe I decided to try first. 

Let me tell you why I love this recipe...you put the salt on BEFORE popping the kernels so it wonderfully coated each piece of popcorn!!  I planned to eat this for lunch but once again the girls confiscated it before I could eat it and I had to make a second bag.  (This seems to be a reoccurring theme lately.)

The original recipe says to staple the bag shut.  1.  I don't like the thought of that in my microwave.  2.  I just folded the bag over twice and it was just fine!

This tasted just like flavored air popped popcorn, but the popped kernels were really quite dry, so the olive oil doesn't make it greasy at all.

1/4 cup good quality popcorn (I used generic)

2 teaspoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or popcorn salt (I used ranch salt)

Sprinkle jalapeno seasoning mix (I omitted)

Paper lunch bag

Toss the popcorn with the olive oil, salt, and jalapeno seasoning mix in the paper bag. Fold the top of the bag over and staple the bag twice to close. Place the bag in the microwave and microwave on high for 2 minutes to 3 minutes, or until there are about 5 seconds between pops.