Tonight, I made caramel corn for dinner.
Okay, we had some great leftovers, pork tenderloin chili, chicken noodle stew, and meatloaf with horseradish. There were two kinds of veggies ready to go into the microwave, and extra mashed potatoes.
I love leftover mashed potatoes.
But I didn’t want to eat any of that. Mike had come home from a Scouting event with a new bag of popping corn. We already had two open bags of popcorn, so I popped some popcorn and munched while wondering if I could make a load of popcorn balls for Christmas presents for my students.
I could, except that I’d never made popcorn balls for Christmas before and I have this little gift of crazy when it comes to new recipes. So, I decided I needed to make some caramel even though I didn’t have any corn syrup and most of the recipes called for corn syrup. I blended most of the ingredients, minus the corn syrup, until the taste of the raw stuff was like the buttery caramel I wanted to eat. Yup. That was the taste I craved, buttery sweet.
Oh, the sugar called me like a siren song. Sugar is addicting, isn’t it?
And so I stood at the stove for over an hour and stirred the creamy mixture on very low heat. I had visitors. Both Mike and Nick brought spoons to taste-test. The house smells incredible. Now, I have a pan of caramel that I’m pretty sure will set up well enough. Somehow, I misplaced my candy thermometer and just now remembered the test of a ball of candy in a cup of ice cold water to see if it would set.
It’s late and now I’m too tired to see if it will set properly or stand at the stove any longer. I also mixed some of the caramel with a wad of popcorn. I want to see if it will work or just turn into a soggy mess. Nick will be my taste-test participant tomorrow at lunch.
This is a test. This is just a test.
Nobody minds these kinds of tests, at least not in my house.
Thank you for listening, jules