Chewy-Soft Caramel Corn

Ingre­di­ents

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) but­ter ( just use reg­u­lar, salted but­ter for this recipe–’cause that’s what mom did!)
• 1 pound of brown sugar (this works out to be about 2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar)
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1 can (14 oz.) sweet­ened con­densed milk
• pinch of kosher salt
• –or–
• fleur de sel (I use Mal­don) to use as a garnish
• 20–24 cups air-popped pop­corn (this amount will depend on how caramel coated you like your popcorn–less pop­corn, more caramel-y!)

Instruc­tions

1. Pre­pare two sheet pans with either sil­pat lin­ers, or but­ter spread onto sur­face. Set aside.
2. Pop your popcorn.
3. **One thing I ALWAYS DO when I use pop­corn: I pop each batch into a large bowl. I then shake and tap the bowl until all the hard, unpopped ker­nals set­tle to the bot­tom. Then I care­fully lift only the good pop­corn into another, larger bowl, dis­card­ing what remains. I even leave what looks like good pop­corn just to be safe because if it has set­tled to the bot­tom it likely has a hard, half-popped ker­nal that might end up crack­ing a tooth or den­tal fill­ings. This caramel pop­corn is unde­ni­ably good, but I’m not sure it’s worth hun­dreds of dol­lars of den­tal work. Then again, maybe.….**
4. In a heavy, 6 quart pan, place the but­ter, brown sugar, and corn syrup. With the heat on medium-high, bring these ingre­di­ents to a boil. While stir­ring, slowly add the sweet­ened con­densed milk. Insert your candy ther­mome­ter and let cook, softly boil­ing, almost con­stantly stir­ring, until mix­ture reaches soft ball stage, 235–240 degrees F. on your ther­mome­ter at sea level. If you do not live at or near sea level, cal­i­brate your ther­mome­ter ahead of time.
5. Have your pop­corn ready in a LARGE metal bowl. My big, stain­less steel bowl accom­mo­dates 10 quarts of liq­uid, and will hold 24 cups of pop­corn with room enough to mix with­out over­flow­ing while I stir. Any­thing smaller and you will just have to stir very carefully.
6. About 2 degrees before your caramel reaches the cor­rect tem­per­a­ture, add a healthy pinch of kosher salt. Or, if you are going to gar­nish with fleur de sel, skip this step.
7. When the caramel reaches the cor­rect tem­per­a­ture, Care­fully pour it over the popped pop­corn. Stir with a large sil­i­cone spat­ula, lift­ing and fold­ing until caramel had cov­ered pop­corn sufficiently.
8. Divide pop­corn onto the two pre­pared sheet pans and spread out the pop­corn. It’s eas­ier to eat if you let it set while spread out than if you just put it into a bowl. It divides up pret­tier as well, if you plan on pack­ag­ing some up to give away.
9. Let set an hour or so before packaging.
10. Eat­ing should hap­pen sooner because it’s SO YUMMY WARM!!!