Food... well more like Sweets!

We used to tease my sister for taking pictures of her food, but looking back, carving hearts into radishes and decorating bunny cakes was quite impressive. A lot more so than slabbing cherries on top of cupcakes. Still, I have become quite the fan of food pics, Kelly half expects it anymore. Now for the Rocky Road Caramel Corn... I made this for Mother's Day treats and shared the extras with some friends, feel free to play with the recipe. I have used Pecans and Chocolate Chips for a "Turtle Caramel Corn."

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (I use unsalted)

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup corn syrup

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 quarts popped popcorn

Optional (as much or as little as you want):

chopped walnuts

chocolate chips

mini marshmallows

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Directions:

Preheat oven to 250*

Spray 2 shallow baking dishes (I use 9x13 pyrex dishes) with Pam.

Place popcorn in dishes.

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Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn, stir to coat.

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Bake in preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, for 1 hour.

Mix ins:

You can bake the nuts with the popcorn for the whole hour, or I recommend adding them at least for the last 15 minutes. After the hour of baking I usually transfer the popcorn into a large bowl and stir in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Then I spread the mixture onto a wax-paper lined cookie sheet, to completely cool before storing in a ziploc bag.

Hope you enjoy and let me know if you come up with any fun mix-in ideas!