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Caramel Corn Crack

Ingredients

  • 8 cups plain popcorn
  • 1 cup mixed nuts I used cashews and almonds
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup butter
  • 6 Tablespoons clear corn syrup
  • 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla
  • kosher or sea salt

Instructions

  • Combine popcorn & nuts in a large bowl (one that will clean easily). Make sure to throw out any kernels that didn’t pop. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
  • Melt the butter then add sugar and corn syrup. Stir until the mixture boils. Turn down heat and continue cooking until it thickens and turns a nice caramel color (10-12 minutes), stir occasionally.
  • Remove the caramel mixture from heat and stir in the vanilla with a heat-proof spatula.
  • Pour the mixture into the bowl of popcorn & nuts, stirring vigorously until coated (like you would when making Rice Krispie treats but don’t use your bare hands – this stuff is hot!).
  • Spread the popcorn mixture onto your prepared baking sheets and generously sprinkle with salt.
  • Let the caramel harden before breaking into clumps. Store for up to a week in an airtight container.

Notes

I used one bag of light butter microwaveable popcorn.
My caramel sauce hardened pretty quickly so I had some trouble coating all the popcorn and nuts with the sauce. So I put about a 1/2 cup of the caramel corn into a microwaveable dish and reheated for up to 30 seconds then vigorously stirred everything together. It was a bit time consuming to do this to the entire batch, but was totally worth it.
Recipe from Blue Jean Gourmet .