Caramel Popcorn

we packaged this up in pretty bags for our neighbors...
except Dave is supposed to be delivering and hasn't! I think
he's hoping that if he holds out long enough and I say it's too
late, it's probably stale by now, then he'll get to eat it all and I'll
make something else for him to deliver for our neighbors!! 

I'm not a huge popcorn lover - Dave will go to the movies just to eat the popcorn he loves it so much...I'll have a handful and be done. Until Janis came over and we made this pretty easy caramel corn that is - I couldn't stop "testing" it to make sure it was right haha. I've never made caramel corn before but after making it with her I know it'll become a regular thing. And we had to fight Dave to keep him out of the kitchen - it smells SO good!

1 cup butter

1 (16 oz) package (2 1/4 cups) packed brown sugar

1 (14 oz) can (1 1/4 cup) sweetened condensed milk

1 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

air-popped popcorn 

In a heavy 3-quart saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add brown sugar, sweetened condensed milk, and corn syrup; mix well. Cook and stir over medium high heat to boiling. Carefully clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pan. Cook and stir mixture over medium heat to 248 degrees (firm ball stage). Cook to softball stage if softer caramel popcorn is desired.

Remove the saucepan from heat; remove thermometer. Stir in vanilla. Immediately pour over popcorn. 

Notes:

I told Janis I wouldn't use her picture
without permission..and...I didn't ask if I could
use this one but I think it's cute- let's not tell
her and see if she reads the blog ;)

• we made 4 batches of this so I can't tell you how much popcorn one batch of caramel will cover - probably more than one big bowl. 
• we used both light and dark brown sugars, I prefer the light because when you coat the popcorn you don't see the white of the popcorn if you don't coat every bit of every kernel as easily. Just looks nicer. There's no difference in taste that I can tell...and I tasted enough to know haha.
• when pouring the caramel over the popcorn we did it a little bit at a time. Carefully pour some over the top of the popcorn in a big bowl, mix it in well and then add a little more caramel. Just keep adding it a little at a time, incorporating the popcorn and caramel together slowly. 
• this makes a fairly soft caramel popcorn and we could easily shape it into balls if you want to do that. 
• lastly, we used unsalted butter and then realized after pouring the caramel on that it needed salt, so we liberally sprinkled coarse salt over the popcorn and mixed well. That really made it delicious!