DIY: Salted Caramel Popcorn - an experiment

The story goes, I wanted to make popcorn cake. And that calls for fresh popcorn. Do you know how difficult it is in this day and age to get fresh popcorn? All you get is the microwavable stuff.
I could do with that, but I so did want to do everything from ground up and I wasn't sure the packaged stuff was the best way to go about it.


Chembur market is a treasure trove of fun stuff. After almost 6 years around this place, like Barney, I have a guy for everything, especially when it comes to Chembur market. Surprisingly though, I didn't know where to get popcorn. Even more surprisingly, I really didn't have to go anywhere. Right in front of the local station was this guy popping corn who was happily willing to part with his share of unpopped corn for next to nothing. Though he did warn me as uninitiated as I am to the whole process, popping corn might be a little different than what I expected. Of course it would be different I thought; I'd never popped corn, microwaveable or otherwise. Little did I know, the whole shaking the bowl shebang is a little tiring not to mention that even after all the shaking I didn't end up with a whole lot of popped corn. I had a whole bunch of unpopped buggers at the bottom of the bowl.





I like caramel popcorn and with my recent fetish for salt, I like salted caramel popcorn more. Also, a little butter does no one any harm right? Since I was winging this, I don't have really accurate measurements nor can I say it turned out perfect. But since this is a place where I experiment, I can say I was just logging my experiments so I can tweak it in future.



Ingredients

1/2 cup corn
3/4 cup sugar
20  grams butter
pinch of salt

Method

Pop corn in a covered dish over the stove shaking continuously. The flame on medium high. Takes about 4 mins.
Spread on a tray covered with parchment. Throw the unpopped corn away.
In a saucepan caramelize sugar till it reaches a deep amber colour.
Take off flame, whisk in butter till it melts and blends in.
Sprinkle the salt and whisk again.
Pour hot caramel over the spread popcorn and stir the whole lot while its still warm.
Spread it out again so it doesn't all clump up and stick together. About 15 mins.
Have immediately.


Have you noticed my penchant for taking pictures portrait mode?