Friday 9 April 2010

Oh Wow Oh My Caramel Popcorn




Basic Popcorn is so easy to make and is such a fantastic low-calorie snack. Unlike the popcorn you buy at cinemas, you get the option of how much butter and salt to add. However, there's nothing... absolutely nothing like crispy, caramel-coated bites of calorie-laden popcorn to tantalise those tastebuds.

To make popcorns, it's a simple 2 ingredient method:
In a medium saucepan with lid, pour in about 1 tablespoon of oil (I use Canola) and about 3 tablespoons of corn kernels. You can buy these corn kernels from the dry goods section of NTUC or most supermarkets.

Close the lid on the saucepan, and put the pot on medium heat. Shake the saucepan gently to coat the kernels with the oil, until you hear or see (if you're using a glass lid) the sound of a popcorn popping. Continue shaking the pot until the popping sound slows down to about 2 seconds between each pop. Remove the popped corns into a fresh bowl and if there are still unpopped kernels, you can return those to the heat.

If you like, you can melt some butter and salt and drizzle the mixture over the popcorn. Otherwise, you could try this easy "Oh Wow Oh My" Caramel Popcorn.

For 100g of freshly popped popcorn,

Ingredients
50 g salted butter
200 g brown sugar
55 ml corn syrup
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
  1. Preheat oven to 95 degrees C. Place freshly popped popcorn in a very large bowl in the oven to keep warm.
  2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Once sugar has melted, boil without stirring for 4 minutes. This will make the caramel crispy later.
  3. Remove from heat and stir in soda and vanilla. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn in the bowl and stir well to coat.
  4. Place in a large shallow baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven, stirring every 5 minutes, for about a minimum of 15 min. The original recipe calls for stirring every 15 minutes for an hour, but I was in a hurry and the kids were impatient for the treat. ;P
  5. Remove from oven and let cool completely before breaking into pieces. This is very important, otherwise the popcorns will be too hot and sticky. Waiting until it cools makes the treat less sticky.
That's all for now... enjoy the treat! =)


No comments: