Easy Homemade Caramel Corn & Kettle Corn Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Is kettle corn the same as caramel corn? ›

Kettle corn is a combination of sweet and salty flavors. It is lighter in flavor and texture than caramel corn as the sugar and salt are mixed in during popping rather than coated.

Baking the caramel-coated popcorn helps to set the caramel sauce. By skipping this step, the caramel corn will become soggy.

Instead of the usual corn syrup or brown sugar, this healthy caramel popcorn gets its sweetness from honey. The sweet taste of honey mixed with the richness of butter creates a homemade caramel sauce that's simple and yet so good.

Kettle corn stands out for its unique flavor profile, combining sweetness and saltiness in a way that appeals to a wide range of tastes. The preparation process, involving popping the kernels in a kettle with oil, sugar, and salt, creates a satisfying snack that is both nostalgic and delicious.

Cowboy Kettle Corn ​Cowboy Kettle Corn is family owned and operated. We have an old-fashioned cast iron kettle, use premium mushroom popcorn, and stir the corn by hand with a wooden paddle. We cook our Cowboy Kettle Corn using a secret recipe known only by a few, but loved by many.

Golden Syrup

It has the same light color and sweet flavors, and is also an invert sugar, making it a good candidate for candies. Try it as a 1:1 substitute for corn syrup the next time you want to make peanut brittle or soft and chewy caramel candies.

You can also use a pinch in whipped cream to help avoid it from deflating. Cream of tartar is used in caramel sauces and fudge to help prevent the sugar from crystallizing while cooking. It also prevents cooling sugars from forming brittle crystals, this is why it's the secret ingredient in snickerdoodles!

A granule of sugar, over-mixing, or uncooperative clumps of sea salt can turn caramel from a glossy, shiny confection into a dull grainy heap of chewy, brown sugar crystals. Candy making, or in this case caramel popcorn making, involves a significant amount of chemistry.

While some people said that she added the egg to absorb extra heat, others had different views. "Whole eggs absorb excess heat so it's an easy way to regulate the temperature balance of the other ingredients," a user wrote.

The longer you cook the syrup (the mixture of sugar and water the forms the base of the caramel sauce), the crunchier your popcorn will be. For very crunchy popcorn (my favorite!), stop cooking when you see the first wisps of smoke coming from the sugar mixture.

What thickens homemade caramel? ›

For each cup (240 mL) of caramel sauce that you need to thicken, run 1 tbsp (14.7 mL) of cold water into a measuring cup, and slowly stir in 1 tbsp of cornstarch. Pour the cornstarch mixture into your pot caramel sauce, and stir constantly. Keep the sauce on low heat until it begins to thicken.

Caramel corn or caramel popcorn (toffee popcorn in the UK) is a confection made of popcorn coated with a sugar or molasses based caramel candy shell that is normally less than 1mm thick.

Editor: Corn syrup is an invert sugar, which helps keep sugar from crystallizing in soft caramels.

Maple Syrup

However, if you are looking for something similar that will impart sweetness and a depth of maple flavor, this is a great alternative you most likely already have on hand. Use a 1:1 swap for corn syrup in baked goods, but avoid using this swap for candy making.

Regular popcorn comes from butterfly flakes or snowflakes, which are irregular in shape with many popping “wings” that stick out, hence the name. Butterfly flakes are much more tender and have a better mouthfeel. Mushroom flakes, used to make kettle corn, are mostly spherical in shape and can be either round or oblong.

Kettle corn is also made from regular popping corn. The difference is how it's popped. Kettle corn is traditionally made in a large, iron kettle that has been oiled. The popcorn is popped before it is tossed with a little salt, and of course some sugar, to give it that addictive flavor.

Kettle corn is like the lovechild of regular popcorn and caramel corn. It gets a nice sugary, light brown caramelization, but doesn't go fully to the sweet side, while also retaining some of its salty character.