Caramel Corn

My Food Science students make this every year...one of our sugar unit lab recipe/experiments. Somehow, it's never made it on the blog before. The recipe is pretty basic, but I often toss in peanuts when I make it at home.

Ingredients
8 C popped popcorn

¼ C butter

½ C brown sugar (packed)

¼ tsp salt

2 T light corn syrup

¼ tsp baking soda

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 200° F.

Lightly coat a large stainless steele (or other oven safe) bowl with nonstick cooking spray - large enough to hold the popcorn and be able to stir it around without it easily spilling. Place popcorn into bowl; set aside.

Line a large baking sheet with waxed paper; set aside.

In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, combine butter, brown sugar, salt, and corn syrup. Heat mixture, gently stirring constantly, until it boils. Keep heat just hot enough to maintain a steady boil; boil for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat. Quickly stir in baking soda until thoroughly combined.

Quickly drizzle all of the caramel mixture over popped popcorn and stir (gently so as not to crush the popcorn) until all the popcorn is coated with caramel.

Place bowl of caramel corn into oven (middle rack) for 10 minutes.

Remove from oven, briefly, to stir caramel corn; return to oven for 10 more minutes.

Remove from oven; spread evenly on waxed paper lined tray. Let cool.     Enjoy!