>> Hilah: Hey there! I am Hilah, and today on Hilah Cooking I am
going to show ya’ll how to make a homemade caramel corn, and this is going to be really
simple and there’s no high fructose corn syrup or any junk like that, and it’s just
a great thing to have on hand during the holidays. It’s a great little snack if you have unexpected
guests, or like, if you realize the last minute you probably should have a Christmas present
for somebody, and you don’t have one, you can just put some in a little cellophane bag,
tie a bow on it, and be like blam! It’s reindeer corn. [Homemade Caramel Corn Recipe] >> Hilah: First we are going to make our popcorn
for our caramel corn. I’ve got some popcorn kernels here in a
large pot, and I’m just going to put it on high heat and let it start getting hot,
and we’ll add about a tablespoon of oil, and you cannot, you cannot, I don’t want
to tell you that you can’t do anything, but I really recommend not using microwave
popcorn and actually buying kernels and popping it yourself, the reason being that microwave
popcorn is a little bit more fragile than fresh popped corn, and also to me I think
it’s just too salty, and I think that once you try making popcorn yourself from actual
kernels, you will have fun with it, and you probably won’t want to go back to the microwave
stuff unless you like that, I don’t know. I am not judging. Anyway, so I’ve got oil in there, and then
just want to start out, we are going to put like three kernels in the oil and put the
lid on it, and then you just want to listen, listen closely for those to pop. As soon as the first one pops we can go ahead
and put in the rest of our kernels. This is just gonna let us know when the oil
is hot enough so that we can minimize our burning risk of the popcorn, burn popcorn,
so shhh, listen. Hear that? That was a pop. There is another one. Okay, put that in, and I am gonna turn the
heat down to like a medium high, so I am like a seven out of ten on my stove, and start
giving it a little shake. You don’t need to like shake it like crazy
until it really starts going; it’s happening. Things are happening in there. I think there’s nothing more exciting than
the sound of a whole bunch of popcorn popping inside a pot. Okay, when you hear it start to slow down
like that, I am going to turn the heat off and just let it sit here with the heat, and
give it some shakes. Okay, all the popping is done. So now I just pour it into a big bowl. If you don’t have two big bowls, you can
do what I am doing and use a colander and a bowl, so this first step, this is very important,
especially if you’re going to be giving this as a gift. Well, I mean even if you’re not because
you don’t want to break a tooth on Christmas. That would suck because all of the dentists
are closed except for the fancy, expensive emergency ones, so we’ve got our popcorn
in here and you just want to start giving it a little shake. This is going to get all of the un-popped
kernels and all of the only partially popped kernels kind of sunk to the bottom. Okay, and then just use your clean little
mitts to scoop out little pieces at a time and as you go just kind of look and make sure
you are not getting any un-popped kernels in there. It’s totally worth the extra time to do
this. Okay, so these little, little bits over here
I am gonna discard, and we’ll just set this aside, and now we can start working on our
caramel sauce. I’ve got a stick of butter in my pot here. I am going to melt that along with some water. The stick of butter is four ounces for people
who don’t have sticks and then some brown sugar and some white sugar. If you want more of a caramelly taste, you
can use all brown sugar. I am actually going to add some cocoa powder
and cinnamon because I like this chocolate cinnamon thing and a little bit of salt in
here too. You could add whatever kind of flavoring that
you like. If you wanted to do like a pumpkin pie spice
thing, or I was even thinking I am gonna add some nuts later, and I was even thinking that
if you want to use those like smoked almonds and then maybe add some chipotle powder to
this cocoa cinnamon thing, that might be a really awesome like sweet, savory, spicy kind
of combination. I think I might try that next time. So, anyway, we are just going to get this
melted, and then boil it for five minutes, and you want to make sure you watch it because
it will kind of bubble up, and you don’t want it to boil over. After your butter has melted, it will pretty
quickly start to bubble and boil and toil and trouble. That was not the right order of words, so
you just want to keep stirring it. So we’re just going to cook it for about
five minutes until it starts to thicken, and I’ll show what that looks like. It’ll get kind of syrupy. All right, about five minutes later you’ll
start to get this sort of like sludgy, tarry looking stuff. It looks really bubbly and it’s thick, see
that, so I am gonna turn it off, and then we can add in our vanilla extract, and the
reason you add this at the end I think is just because the flavor holds up better than
if you try to cook it. It will bubble. It’s very exciting, and then we’re going
to add a little bit of baking soda, and this does the same thing in this recipe that it
does in cookies and stuff. It just makes bubbles in there to sort of
make a lighter toffee in the end, so it makes the little tiny bubbles so that when it cools
it’s easier to bite into, kind of like a, like a Butter Finger bar where it’s got
little flaky layers like that. All right, this looks great! Now, we’re ready to toss it with our popcorn
and nuts, and I’ve got here pecans and almonds, but you can use any nuts you like, and put
our nuts in with our popcorn, and then just pour our caramel sauce over and start tossing
it around, and be careful not to touch this with your hands because obviously it’s really
hot, and use a bigger bowl than I’m using. Okay, once your popcorn is pretty well coated
you can spread it out on the baking sheet, and I’ve got this just covered with some
parchment paper, and just try to get it in a single layer if you can, not in big, giant
clumps hopefully. Okay. Awesome! I am just gonna put this in the oven. You want kind of a low oven like 250 for about
30 minutes and just give it a little toss with the spatula about, you know, every ten
minutes or so to make sure it’s cooking evenly, and I’ll see you back then. All right, 30 minutes later, and I let this
cool, and you’re left with these little, dry, crisp, sweet, little caramel corns. Mmm mmmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmmmmm! Man! I love popcorn! Popocorn has got to be one of my favorite
snacks in the whole world. So, I hope you try this recipe. I hope you share it with your loved ones,
and maybe throw it in some little bags and make some cute little presents of it, stocking
stuffers, whatever, hostess gifts, stuff like that, and I will see you guys in 2013, so
have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year, okay, bye guys! Love you!