Crunch 'n Munch Buttery Toffee Popcorn with Peanuts
Ingredients
8 cups popped microwave popcorn (natural flavor)
1/4 cup Spanish peanuts
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
Directions
Spread popcorn and peanuts on a baking sheet and keep warm in your oven set to 300 degrees while you prepare the butter toffee. You don't need to preheat the oven.
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat.
Add sugar and corn syrup and simmer, stirring occasionally. Pop a candy thermometer into the mixture and watch it closely.
When the thermometer reaches 300 degrees pour the candy over the warm popcorn and peanuts. Stir well so that the candy coats the popcorn. Put the popcorn back into the oven for 5 minutes, then stir it again to coat the popcorn. Repeat if necessary to thoroughly coat all of the popcorn.
Pour coated popcorn and peanuts onto wax paper. When cool, break up the chunks into bite-size pieces and store it all in a covered container.
Notes
Just look at what F. W. Ruckheim started. He was the guy, who, back in the late 1800's made candy-coated popcorn a national treasure with the invention of Cracker Jack. Now we've got Fiddle-Faddle, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, Crunch 'n Munch and several brands of candy-coated microwave popcorn, to name just a few. Sure, these other varieties don't have the traditional prize inside the box, but let's face it, those prizes are pretty weak compared to what used to be found at the bottom of a box of Cracker jack when I was a kid. And the old-fashioned molasses formula used on Cracker Jack just doesn't have the pizzazz as some of the other tantalizing flavors coating popcorn today. The butter toffee coating is a good example, so that's what I've reverse-engineered for you here. It's a simple recipe that makes a finished product so addictive you'll have to beg someone to take it away from you before you finish the whole bowl by yourself. All you need is a candy thermometer, some microwave popcorn, a few other basic ingredients and you're about 15 minutes away from candy-coated heaven.