Chocolate-drizzled Caramel Corn

I never liked caramel corn. Then one day I made this.

The original recipe can be found here, courtesy of Amy’s Food Room. What’s wonderful about this recipe is that it doesn’t use corn syrup (an ingredient that has always freaked me out just by the name alone) but instead sticks to simple things like butter and brown sugar to make something wonderful and every shade of delicious.

Here’s my version, which has some notes, minor tweaks, and one final chocolatey addition:
Note: the measurements need not be precise. I didn’t have enough brown sugar so I used only 3/4 lb and everything turned out fine.

Chocolate-drizzled Caramel Corn
*makes about 15 cups

Ingredients:
15 cups popcorn, unpopped kernels discarded
*about 5 bags prepared microwave popcorn
2 cups (1 lb) dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla (I mean good vanilla – none of this imitation garbage)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. In a large saucepan, bring the brown sugar, butter, water, and salt to a boil. Continue boiling moderately for about 5-6 minutes until the mixture starts to thicken somewhat.

2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the vanilla and baking soda. The caramel will bubble upon addition of the vanilla, then puff up as you stir in the baking soda (the texture soon resembles that of beaten egg whites). Stir well. In a very large bowl (or in several smaller bowls), pour the slightly foamy caramel over the popcorn. Stir gently to ensure an even coating over all kernels.

3. Divide the caramel corn between two lined cookie sheets (you can line them with wax paper, aluminum foil, or nothing at all, which was what I did). Bake for 45 minutes at 250º, stirring every 15 minutes or so. Remove from the oven and let stand to cool a bit while preparing step 4 (the caramel will still be soft).

4. Using a double boiler, melt 1-12oz bag of chocolate chips. (If you’d like, more or less chocolate can be used. Also, I used chocolate chips simply because they’re cheap – if you’d like, you can simply melt down a bar or two of your favorite chocolate!)

5. Using a spoon or spatula, drizzle the chocolate over the caramel corn. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes or until the chocolate has hardened, then break the popcorn into pieces and enjoy!

–Lauren