Brown butter caramel popcorn balls
Claire Saffitz x Dessert Person · ♥ 6.4K likes · 179.3K views · 18 min video
Read about brittle and nut candy in the BrightCulinary Book
Timestamp
Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 10 cup popped popcorn
- neutral oil
Heat a thin layer of neutral oil in the stock pot over high heat, add the kernels and coat, and put the lid on.
Popping the popcorn without burning it
Once the popping starts, dial the heat back to medium, keep shaking the pot so the popped corn rises and the kernels stay on the bottom, and crack the lid to let the steam out -- drier popcorn is crunchier.
- 1 cup roasted peanuts
- flaky salt
Measure out ten cups of popped corn. Stop when the pops come a couple of seconds apart.
Wipe the pot out to remove excess oil and loose kernels; wash it if anything scorched.
Measuring popcorn and the nuts
- 1 stick butter
Brown the butter in the same pot over medium high, stirring continuously so the milk solids stay free floating, until the liquid is very yellow and golden brown specks appear.
Browning the butter
- granulated sugar
- corn syrup
- cream of tartar
Off the heat, add the sugar, corn syrup and cream of tartar.
Building the caramel against crystallization
- 1 cup water
Pour the water around the sides of the pot so no sugar crystals are left on the walls to set off crystallization.
Back over medium high, stir gently only until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil; stir or swirl only occasionally.
Cook to a medium caramel, the colour of honey; it will darken further in the oven. Set the oven to 250.
- baking soda
Stir in the baking soda, which reacts with the acid and aerates the caramel so the coating is light and very crunchy.
What the baking soda does
The caramel is close when the bubbles go big, slow and glossy rather than rapid, meaning most of the water has evaporated.
Coating the popcorn and peanuts
Off the heat, add the popcorn and peanuts and toss thoroughly so nothing pools in the bottom.
- kosher salt
Bake about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 to lift the caramel off the bottom and coat everything evenly.
On the second stir sprinkle in flaky salt. She turned the oven up to 325 for the last ten minutes for a toastier caramel.
Variation: tip it onto a sheet tray to cool and break it up as loose caramel popcorn instead.
Give it a final stir and let it cool until it can be handled -- the working window between too hot and too set is short.
With greased gloves, gather a fistful at a time on the work surface and form clusters; they set quickly.