Sweet & Salty Toffee Popcorn

Sugar is funny stuff. You have to work with it for many years before you learn what you can and can’t get away with.

Tip #1: Once you bring the sugar and water to a boil, DO NOT stir or whisk, and DO NOT walk away. I’ve made both of these mistakes many times making this recipe. Stirring the sugar water will make it crystallize, not caramelize. And you have to be patient and watch it. It will seem to take forever, minutes will go by and nothing with happen, you will get bored, you will be tempted to walk away – DON’T! The sugar will go from clear to caramel to burnt in a matter of seconds. As you can see below, mine caramelized at around 13 minutes and 45 seconds. At 12 minutes, it still looked as clear as can be. As it gets close it turns foamy and you start to smell the caramelized sugar.

Tip #2: Washing up cooled, hardened sugar is the worst, it’s harder than glue. To clean a pot filled with hardened sugar, just fill it with water and bring it to a boil on the stove, using the whisk to scrape down the sides. Once the sugar is dissolved, just pour out the water and wipe down the pot.

Ingredients:

6 c air-popped popcorn, or 2 bags of microwave popcorn
2 c salted nuts
3/4 c butter, cold
1 c white sugar
1/2 c water

Directions:

Pick all of the unpopped kernels and place the popcorn in a large pot or bowl with the nuts.
Cut the butter into cubes then place back in the fridge to keep cold until the last second.
Place the sugar and water in a medium pot, stir once and place over medium-high heat on the stove.
Watch the sugar water as it bubbles, until it turns the perfect caramel colour. Immediately remove from the heat.
Add the cold butter and whisk well until completely combined. * Be careful placing the cold butter in the hot sugar. Boiling sugar sticks to the skin and BURNS!
Stir the caramel into the popcorn, coating all the kernels. Allow the mixture to cool for about 1 hour, stirring every 10 minutes or so to break up the bunches.