Cooking By Moonlight: One Step Caramel Corn

I looooove caramel corn. My mom makes the most delicious caramel corn. Sometimes she even makes some and mails it to me. There is always an epic battle in our apartment when these packages arrive. For some reason Nick believes he should be given equal claim to this caramel corn which I find to be completely untrue! While I love this caramel corn it can be a bit of a production to make. Sometimes you want caramel corn but you don't want to deal with the dishes that are created by making caramel (everyone HATES cleaning those pans!). Enter this recipe. It's very quick, easy, and most importantly mess free. Also it doesn't use the typical butter and sugar so you can feel a little bit better about chowing down!

To make this caramel you just stir together all the ingredients, toss the popcorn in the mixture, and bake. It's that simple. The flavor is pretty unique. While it has the delicious, light crunch of caramel corn it has the fantastic flavor of honey. Not being the world's biggest fan of honey I was skeptical of the product but I ended up absolutely loving it. Will it replace my mom's caramel corn? Heck no! Nothing would replace that! Will it be added to my list of quick and easy snacks? You know it!

You can add all kinds of flavors to this. The original recipe I saw added some spices (think a pinch of cayenne or ancho chiles) and maple syrup instead of honey. Or you can sub out the nuts for mini chocolate chips or mini M&Ms if you're a chocoholic.

Honey Caramel Popcorn Balls Recipe

Ingredients

yields about 5 servings

1/4 cup honey

1 T. canola oil

1/4 t. salt

1 T. brown sugar

12 t. vanilla extract

2 T. chopped almonds

6 cups air-popped popcorn

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 300 degrees and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, a Silpat, or lots of cooking spray.

2) In a bowl whisk together all the ingredients except the popcorn until well combined. Add the popcorn and toss well until evenly coated.

3) Place the popcorn on the baking sheet and bake until the popcorn is glistening about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven allow to cool until it is easy to handle without burning yourself. Here you can mold it into popcorn balls (about the size of baseballs) the same way you would make a snowball. Or you can just fluff it up and put it in a bowl to eat.

**This will store in an air-tight container for 3-4 days without going stale.

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