Homemade Caramel Corn - YUM!!!

Caramel corn connoisseurs beware, this is a highly addictive recipe. I'm not going to lie to you; it spoils you.  It's the homemade buttery, caramel sauce and the ratio of caramel sauce to popcorn that makes this the fairest caramel corn in the land. Personally, I can't stand caramel corn that doesn't sufficiently cover the popcorn with enough caramel sauce.  Made correctly, it really can't be beat.

You'll need:

1- Aluminum roasting pan. The disposable kind you buy at the grocery store, but you won't be throwing this pan away. I use mine over and over again until it dies, which takes years.

Popcorn - choose your favorite popcorn.  I use plain microwave popcorn.  You need enough popcorn to fill the roasting pan to the top so it will be level with the rim of the pan.  You don't want it heaped. I've found that keeping it perfectly level is just the right amount of popcorn to get the popcorn to caramel sauce ratio just right.

Important!!! Unless visiting the dentist is your idea of a fun time, I HIGHLY suggest after popping each batch of popcorn you sift through your popped corn and remove all unpopped kernels.  I use a large bowl for this. I pour my popped bag of corn into a large bowl and sift through it over and over again searching for those hard kernels that can crack a tooth. When I am satisfied I've found them all, I transfer the popcorn with my fingers to the roasting pan.

Recipe:

2   sticks of butter
2 - cups brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Directions:

Melt butter, corn syrup, brown sugar and salt over medium heat in a large saucepan.
Cook for 5 minutes, or until 280/290 degrees is reached on a candy thermometer (light crack stage).
Remove from heat and add baking soda.  As you mix in the baking soda, the sauce will grow in volume (it will double).  Make sure you mix the baking soda in well.  Then, begin to pour the sauce over the popped corn and mix well.  I generally pour a layer over the top, mix it into the pop corn, pour more sauce and mix, and repeat until all of the caramel sauce has been used and I'm sure all pop corn is pretty well coated.  You have to work fairly fast.  Hint: Coat your mixing spoon with butter to help avoid everything sticking to the spoon

Next, bake in a 200 degree oven for one hour, stirring mixture every 15 minutes.  When finished, let cool, then break caramel corn up into pieces and store in a airtight container.