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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

[Caramel Popcorn] Popular snack for summer camp

My kids have been going to summer day camps throughout the summer vacation.
Summer is a very expensive season for working parents. :(

One of this summer's camps was 'swimming' camp.
At swimming camp,
kids have two swimming sessions each day,
and have an extracurricular acitivity everyday.
Thursday's activity was snack potluck & movie.
Each kid was required to bring a snack to share with 5-6 other kids.
I prepared a container of cantaloupe cuts
and made a container of caramel popcorn.
I wanted to send some unique snack that any other kid wouldn't bring.
Confession:
Strangely, I am peculiar about such matters of no importance. I can't help.

Caramel popcorn is always a crowd pleaser snack.
I was pretty sure nobody else would bring caramel popcorn.
(Remi told me later that caramel popcorn was the only homemade snack for the potluck!
It turned out that a few kids brought fruits and most kids brought packaged snacks)
It's true that I spent an hour to make this snack, but my heart was full. :D

It's sweet enough to become a special treat for a potluck or a movie day.

Here goes the Caramel popcorn recipe:
(the recipe is adapted from Allrecipes.com)
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
 3/4 cup brown sugar

(* sugar amount is reduced from 1 cup, to adjust my kids' taste)
 1/4 cup corn syrup
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
 10 cups popped popcorn
How to make

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (95 degrees C).
Pop the popcorns.

2. Place popcorn in a very large bowl.


3. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter.
4. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring 4 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla.
6. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn, stirring to coat.

Make sure that the popcorn is coated with caramel syrup to the bottom.

7. Place in a/two large shallow baking dishe(s) and bake in preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, for 1 hour.
8. Remove from oven and let cool completely before breaking into pieces.
Ummm~
It has a perfect sweet flavour that will refresh your afternoon.
Attention! (In french accent :))
It's a very dangerous snack in the evening.

Caramel Popcorn

2 comments:

  1. A homemade caramel popcorn is impressive! It's something I've never thought of making at home. I'm sure the kids liked it very much:)


    Yesterday was my dad's birthday, so I baked an angel food cake using the recipe from your previous blog. Most times, my family likes whatever I bake, but this time they LOVED it! They loved it so much that they ended up eating the whole cake in the middle of the night, and despite the fact that it was only 2/3 size of the original recipe, it's quite surprising considering that my mom's pretty strict about late night snacks. My parents even talked to me about selling the cake with various toppings if my career(which hasn't even took off) goes wrong, so I don't need to explain more about how much they enjoyed the cake.


    Hence, I owe you a big Thank You! Merci beaucoup!


    And thank you also about the advice on my trip to London-Paris, although that was a while ago. Both cities were equally charming (maybe in different aspects) and it got little sad when had to leave, but I'll probably have another chance to revisit the cities.


    Fedex is into semifinals at Cincinnatti and no doubt about getting into the finals, but I can't wait for the US Open to begin!

    Have a nice weekend:D

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    Replies
    1. Hi Julia,
      my apologies for the late reply.
      As I said in my latest post, I'm on vacation~

      Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.
      I should share my recipe for the angel food cake here! It actually is a much lighter cake than usual cakes as it is puffed up thanks to the whipped egg whites~ So I guess the occasional devouring of an angel food cake would be okay? :D

      I am DELIGHTED to hear that you liked London and Paris. I know, aren't they such beautiful cities?

      Fed won the Cincinnati!!! The first set was unbelievable, wasn't it?
      I hope he recaptures the US Open for the first time since 2008! Allez Roger!

      Have a wonderful Sunday!

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