Eat Plants, Feel Good: Sea Salt Caramel Corn

I love caramel corn!! Lately, I've been craving some crunchy, sweet, salty, popcorny goodness with all my being. I finally broke this afternoon. Instead of running to the store for some Cracker Jacks, however, I went on a mission to create some caramel corn from as few ingredients as possible. I've made caramel several times from granulated sugar and I decided to use the same principles in this recipe. I thought this would take several trial-and-error sessions, but this was one of those magical moments in life when everything goes right - the first time. Wow! My food photography isn't the best here, but that's because of the nature of the recipe. Timing is everything, so I didn't want to ruin my caramel by taking the time to fuss around with settings on the camera. Afterwards, I was too busy eating to worry about fussing with the settings on the camera while taking final photos. Now, I'm sure I'm making 20,000 typos because my caramel-laden fingers are sticking to the keyboard. You'll find out what I mean after you make this yourself!

SEA SALT CARAMEL CORN

Ingredients:

Brown Bag Microwave Popcorn
1/8 cup + 1tsp. butter
1/2 cup sucanat
1 tsp. vanilla
Sea salt, to taste

1. Prepare popcorn and pour into a large bowl. (Note: I don't really have a sweet tooth, so I don't like my popcorn to be completely coated in caramel. I think it's best with a little bit of white popcorn showing through. If you'd like yours more evenly coated, just use a little less popcorn.)

2. Place butter, sucanat, and vanilla in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.

3. Stir constantly, using spoon to break up sucanat crystals.

4. Once the mixture begins to boil, continue heating and stirring for ONE MINUTE. The timing is really important here, folks... I actually used the timer on my cell phone to figure out exactly how long it took to get it to just the right point. If you heat this any longer, it will quickly burn and turn into a shiny black lump of carbon in your pan! (I know this because I've burnt regular caramel several times...)

5. After one minute of boiling, remove caramel from heat and pour into bowl with popcorn.

6. Stir, stir, stir...

7. Add salt and enjoy!