Easy Caramel Popcorn Recipe

I wanted something fun and festive to snack on while we watched the Husker game on TV, which is why I decided to color the caramel red, but not why it is also yellow–ahem!  You can get the full story here, but the popcorn was delicious and so easy.

Ingredients:

½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
¼ corn syrup
¾ teaspoon vanilla
food coloring (if desired)
2 (3.3 ounce) bags of microwave popcorn
(I used the butter flavor which made it oh so yummy but also yellow.  If you want white popcorn just use the plain.)

Pop the two bags of popcorn and separate to make sure there are no unpopped kernels.  Place the popcorn in a big bowl.  Meanwhile melt the butter in a heavy sauce pan.  Then mix in the sugar and syrup stirring constantly until it boils.  Turn the burn down.  Let the mixture boil gently for 5 minutes without stirring.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and food coloring.  Pour immediately over popped corn and stir to coat evenly.  Some of my clan don’t like it super sweet so I also added another bag of pop corn and mixed it with the caramel corn for a sweet and salty snack.  Yum!