Joel had a few friends over last night to watch the live streamed U2 concert . I thought it would be nice for them to have a little snack mid concert, so I made up a batch of this delicious caramel corn. It was well received and was eaten up quite quickly. In fact, one friend thought I was joking when I said it was a healthier version! This recipe uses rapadura, a whole cane sugar, and honey. No white or brown sugar, no corn syrup. Just buttery sweetness.
This recipe is adapted from a recipe that my husband grew up eating. I thought this would be a good week to share it, with Halloween coming up. Another great “candy” recipe is homemade fudge. So good.
Enjoy!
Old Fashioned Caramel Corn Yield: About 16 cups
To get a thicker coat of caramel, just use a little less popcorn. I used butter in this recipe since it wasn’t really for Elena and I, but coconut oil would work here too for a dairy free version. You could also experiment with different sweeteners, such as maple sugar or coconut sugar.
3/4 cup of popcorn kernels, popped
1/2 cup of butter or coconut oil
1 cup of rapadura
1/4 cup of honey1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla1-Melt the butter, rapadura and honey together in a small pot. Allow to simmer for five minutes. Be very careful with this hot mixture, as it can cause bad burns.
2-Meanwhile, place the popcorn in a large bowl with plenty of room to stir. When the mixture has simmer for the allotted five minutes, then add the baking soda and the vanilla and stir it in (it will get foamy).
3-Take off of the heat and pour over the popcorn. Stir until well coated.
4-Place on two jellyroll pans in a single layer and place in a 250 oven for about 45 minutes to an hour. This hardens the caramel. If a lot of the caramel is dripping onto the pan, you can give it a gentle stir back onto the popcorn throughout the cooking process.
5-When done, remove from pans, breaking into small pieces and cool. Enjoy!
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Thank you so much, my kids are gonna love this!
Thank you! We were just hoping for a recipe without corn syrup.
Try using jaggery the next time-we use it a lot in our Indian sweets and brittle(peanut/sesame and mixed fruit+nut brittle).You’ll find two types of jaggery in most Indian stores-cane and palm, and both have a distinct flavors.
Here’s a link to a traditional Indian dosa( fermented pancake) recipe in which I’ve use jaggery:
http://bonnenutrition.blogspot.com/2009/04/sweet-mango-dosa.html
I tried the jaggery (palm) and my children liked it very much! Thank you for the suggestion:)
This will be great for my dairy, soy, and gluten free toddler! And not to mention the rest of us.
Can I use sucanat instead? I just ran out of rapadura and the woman I buy my raw milk, eggs, freshly ground ww flour, etc. sells sucanat.
Definitely
We don’t celebrate Halloween but this will be a fun family treat. Thank You! Last year at Christmas I tried to think of a healthier way to make them & just could not so we did w out! Thanks again!
I make a quick version of this that tastes like cracker jack using molasses, honey, butter, and adding peanuts to the popcorn. It’s really good too. I don’t bother baking it, I just eat it sticky. : )
Yummy! That sounds great. You can eat this one sticky too.
I bet yours is a little more sticky though, since you use molasses. Want to share the recipe?
Oh yum! Talk about comfort food!
One of my favorites is actually PB popcorn. I make it with a liquid sweetener (usually honey or maple) and spices … oh so good!
Mmm… I’ll try this sometime this week, although I really enjoy the popcorn I make using peanut butter and brown rice syrup. Much lower on the sugar, and still tastes just as sweet! If the kids aren’t around, I throw some dark chocolate chips in – ends up tasting like Moose Munch!
Could I get your recipe for this? I love Moose Munch! Thanks!
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you! Here’s the recipe:
) c dark chocolate chips
2 T coconut oil
1/3 c popcorn kernels
1/2 c brown rice syrup
1/4 c crunchy nut butter (almond, peanut, or cashew)
1/4 t sea salt
1/4 ( or more
Pop the popcorn with the coconut oil, set aside. Heat the brown rice syrup and stir in nut butter to a rolling boil, stirring constantly for 30 seconds. Remove from heat, stir in salt. Pour the mixture over the popcorn, and stir to coat popcorn. Let cool slightly, and add chocolate chips. Enjoy!
It also makes awesome popcorn balls if you stick them together while still warm… which is what we did for our Harvest Party tonight. 
and rumor is the guests LOVED it.
This looks amazing. I am definitely going to try it soon.
Any thoughts on caramel apples?
101 Cookbooks has a carmel apple recipe that just uses honey as a sweetner.
All I can say is WOW! I am trying very hard to not eat this right out of the oven. Don’t want to burn off my taste buds:) Thank you so much for this one. We love caramel corn!
We love popcorn at our house and have it often with smoothies for a snack. Sometimes I will batch up carmel corn to make it extra special for them. . . I just use coconut oil and honey – yum!
Thanks for sharing Kimi!
Oh and I forgot to mention that sometimes we like to add our raw, roasted pecans on top or mixed it – delish!
Give it a try – you won’t be sorry! Although I can’t promise you won’t have a hard time turning down 2nds! lol
YUM! I love the little container you served it in. So cute!
And how funny that you wrote this post and Kelly posted hers today, too! Great minds think alike!
The recipe sounds yummy but I noticed it called for 3/4 cup of popped corn and yielded 16 cups. Did I miss something, I usually do ~smile~!
Tonya
The 3/4 cup is UN-popped corn, which I guess yields 16 cups of popped corn.
Just looking at the picture makes my mouth water. Kids are in for an easy-to-do treat!
This looks great! I would love to make it for Halloween night. Where do you purchase rapudura? Could I replace it with coconut sugar?
I just made this and the taste is wonderful. The only problem I had was that I did use Coconut Oil /butter mixture and I couldn’t get the sugar and oil to blend properly. It was kind of clumpy- I mixed it good and the kids didn’t really care but I am just wondering if coconut oil won’t blend with sugar like butter does.
Thanks for the recipe!!
I’m just making this, and it’s amazingly good! There may not be much left for my daughter’s Halloween party tonight…
here is another good one that came off the popcorn bag from azure standard.
Old Fashioned Caramel Corn Yield: About 40 cups
2 cups of popcorn kernels, popped
1/2 cup of butter or coconut oil
2 cups of honey
1/3 cup molasses
3 tsp peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
dash salt
1-Melt the butter or coconut oil, add rest of ingredients together in a small pot.
2-Meanwhile, place the popcorn in a large bowl with plenty of room to stir.
3-Pour mixture over the popcorn. Stir until well coated.
4-Place in stainless steel bowls, large roaster or jelly roll sheets and place in a 200 oven for about one hour. Stir every 15 minutes. If you want to make popcorn balls, place in 200 oven for 45 minutes and then form balls.
5-When done, cool. Enjoy!