I was snowed in yesterday evening, so I decided to get cozy in the kitchen and experiment with a new recipe. I received a cookbook for Christmas called The Craft of Baking and I love it! Lots of inventive recipes, beautiful photos, and easy-to-follow techniques. Today’s spicy caramel popcorn is based on a recipe from this book, however I made a few changes so that I could post the instructions without copyright infringement

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbs canola oil
• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 Tbs salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp chili powder

Directions:

• Heat the oil over medium-high in a large pot, add the popcorn kernels and cover with a lid.
• Allow kernels to pop (about 3-4 minutes) while occasionally shaking the pot and moving it around on the burner.
• Once kernels are done popping, dump them into a bowl that is sprayed lightly with cooking spray, remove any un-popped kernels.

I love the various flavors and textures in this recipe – sweet, spicy, salty, crispy, crackly, yum! You can play around with the spice level, adjusting the heat to your taste preference. I also really like that this recipe isn’t full of scary ingredients. No artificial preservatives, colors, or additives. Yay!