Homemade Maple Syrup & Cognac Caramel Corn

Caramel corn!

Hooray!

I grew up on Cracker Jacks. I love-love-loved those boxes with the surprise inside. I was a child who loved caramel corn growing up in a family who loved caramel corn in a town with a caramel-corn loving history! At one point, my hometown actually had competing caramel corn stores. I thought it was normal to get a bunny sculpted out of caramel corn in my Easter basket. Green hard candy eyes. Red hard candy nose. And a tuft of tail easily broken off and munched on. I really had no idea how unusual that was until I moved to NYC. They can't be ordered online. So now, as a grown adult, once a year, you can find me on Easter Sunday, taking the last Greyhound bus from my hometown back to NYC with a cardboard box full of caramel corn rabbits carefully guarded in my lap.

As luck would have it, when I moved to NYC in 1997, one of the first people I ever met and became friends with also loves caramel corn! Walking along 5th Avenue, window shopping together, you can hear us whisper "Fiddle Faddle comes in toffee flavor" or "Crunch-n-Munch comes with cashews" the way other people in NYC talk about stocks and bonds or Dolce and Gabbana.

Her birthday and my birthday are just days apart. So, this year, I made us a birthday treat I knew we'd both love. (I could have eaten the whole batch alone, in a dark closet, where my husband couldn't find me ... but I didn't. Instead, I shared. My husband got some. My First NYC Friend got some. And sharing was fine. No, it was good. No, seriously, sharing was gooood.)

Homemade Maple Syrup & Cognac Caramel Corn
Just a little bit of maple syrup adds a hint of maple flavor without upsetting the delicate chemical structure of candy that you need for that crisp satisfying crunch.


3-3 1/2 c. popped unsalted organic corn
3/4 c. organic sucanat sugar (unrefined brown sugar)
1/3 c. organic maple syrup
1/4. c. refined white sugar
1/4 c. corn syrup
1 stick of butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
2 T. cognac, or dark beer, or 1 T. vanilla extract
a large bowl of ice water (good advice from Joy the Baker--it's for safety, just in case of sugar burns)

1) Put the popped corn on a baking sheet (cookie sheet or jelly roll pan). Get out two spatulas. Set aside.
2) Combine the sucanat (brown sugar), maple syrup, white sugar, corn syrup, butter, and salt in a pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat
3) Boil for 8 minutes, stirring constantly.
4) Turn the oven on to 250 degrees F.
5) Remove the caramel from heat. Add the baking soda and cognac (or flavoring) to the caramel. If you are using cognac or beer, be sure to keep your head away from the pot as you stir. The alcohol will nearly instantaneously evaporate, and you don't want that alcohol-steam in your eyes!
6) Pour caramel over the popcorn. Toss with the spatulas. Don't worry about coating perfectly.
7) Put the caramel corn in the oven for 1 hour. Toss with the spatulas every 15 minutes.
8) Allow to cool completely. (I lick the spatulas while I wait.) Then, dig in!

Meaner, Greener, Leaner!
* I usually try to avoid corn syrup, but what can you do? Candy requires what candy requires. And when adding a different sugar source, like sucanat or maple syrup, I definitely want the solid and reliable standard crystalline structure of a little corn syrup to be the backbone of the recipe. So, for candy recipes, I compromise. I use whatever alternative sugar sources that I can, but then I'm sure to use some the standard sugar sources so that the candy turns out great in the end.
* Putting the caramel corn in the oven is helpful. It helps the caramel finishing crystallizing nicely (in my opinion), and it coats the corn evenly while keeping the corn crispy. But since the caramel corn will be in there for a while, there's no need to pre-heat the oven. I just turn it on a moment or two before the caramel corn goes in.
* Popcorn, on its own, is a superbly healthy treat. We air pop ours. That means about 32 calories and 1.2 grams of fiber per cup. Not bad! Low in calories, high in fiber. Caramel corn (obviously) has a lot more calories, but it also still has all that healthy fiber. And splitting this batch of caramel corn was a great way to make sure I didn't eat up the whole batch. (Yes, I am a caramel corn addict.) Here's more info about the nutritional value of popcorn.

Here are more pictures from the process.

Excellent treat!


Ready to get started!



Bubble bubble toil and trouble!


A close up ...