Caramel Corn Bites

(This recipe was originally posted in conjunction with August's theme, Snacks from Scratch.)

This is the perfect snack to pass around the campfire, to munch on in front of a football game (or the Olympics!)...or to sneak handfuls at a time when your kids aren't watching.  AHEM.  The original recipe uses an 8 oz bag of plain or butter-flavored hulless popcorn (Okie Dokie brand), but I adjusted the recipe to use a 6 oz bag of the corn because most store brands come in the smaller bag.  Enjoy!  Disclaimer:  these are extremely addicting!

Ingredients:
3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) real butter
3/4 C brown sugar
6 Tbsp light corn syrup
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 bag (6 oz) plain or butter-flavored hulless popcorn

Directions:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  Boil together the butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup, stirring occasionally.  Add the baking soda and boil one minute.  Remove from heat.  Dump half the popcorn into a large bowl.  Top with half the syrup mixture and stir quickly.  Add the remaining corn and syrup and carefully stir everything together.  Cover a jelly roll pan with parchment paper, or grease lightly.  Pour the corn onto the prepared pan (it will be mounded).  Bake, uncovered, at 250 degrees, for 40 minutes.  Every 10 minutes, remove the pan and stir the corn carefully, making sure to pull the middle part to the outside, the edges to the middle, and the bottom to the top.  Lay out a LOT of wax paper on the kitchen counter.  When corn is finished baking, dump it onto the wax paper and spread it out to dry.  Work quickly because corn will cool and start sticking together quickly!

Options and Tips:

• Make sure you use a large enough pan when boiling the syrup, because when you add the baking soda, the mixture will puff up.
• Use a rubber scraper/spatula to do the mixing and stirring.  If you use a heavy utensil like a wooden spoon, it's easy to accidentally smash the corn pieces.
• For those of you who can only find name brand hulless popcorn, here are the original measurements:  1 C real butter, 1 C brown sugar, 1/2 C corn syrup, 1 tsp baking soda, 8 oz bag corn.  The directions remain the same.

This recipe is originally from Audra VanOverloop.  I converted the measurements to make it work for a smaller bag of hulless popcorn.