Bacon Chocolate Caramel Popcorn!

Cafe Society
1

Folks, oft wears hats and I have discovered the king of popcorn-- bacon chocolate caramel popcorn!

The recipe is as follows. Note that this recipe has a high yield, and can easily be halved.

Bacon Chocolate Caramel Popcorn!

Candied Bacon:
1 lb bacon
2-ish cups brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Dredge the bacon strips in brown sugar, then lay them out on baking sheets on foil with the edges turned up to catch the grease. Cook for 15-25 minutes, until done. When the candied bacon strips have cooled, pat them off with paper towels, and chop them into little pieces.

Popcorn:
Enough oil, preferably walnut oil, to coat the bottom of a heavy-bottomed pot
1 cup unpopped popcorn

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pot until hot enough to pop one or two kernels of popcorn. Then add the rest of the popcorn, cover, and pop until done.

Melted chocolate:
1 lb pound bag of chocolate chips (we used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Dump the bag of chocolate chips into a microwaveable bowl. Microwave on high in 30 second increments, stirring between microwave sessions, until completely melted.

Caramel (MAKE SURE THE POPCORN IS DONE FIRST):
2 cups sugar

Put the sugar in a small saucepan. Heat it on low or medium, stirring constantly, until the sugar melts and turns light to medium brown. At this point, the caramel will burn if you continue to heat it, or harden if you take it off the heat, so you should have the popcorn ready to go by the time you start the caramel.

The Whole Shebang:

Put the popped popcorn in a large bowl. Drizzle the caramel over it, tossing constantly. Do not, for the LOVE OF GOD, get any of the caramel on yourself, because it is like 400 degrees F and sticks and burns like napalm. oft wears hats knows this from experience. Spread the popcorn out on a baking sheet (you may need two). Sprinkle the chopped bacon over the top, and then drizzle on the melted chocolate. Put the baking sheet in the fridge for about 15 minutes, so that the chocolate can harden. Break the sheet of popcorn into chunks and eat!

Should keep for a few days in an airtight container, but I honestly don’t see how there would be any leftovers.

Gaze upon it and drool, my friends!

2

I recommend “mushroom” popcorn for this recipe. When popped it is large and round - much better for mixing with stiff coatings. Amazon and Nuts.com sell it.

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OK, I’m drooling.

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Wowee! Does the popcorn stay reasonably crunchy? For some reason my home-popped stuff has tended toward the chewy lately, and I worry this would be even worse. But obviously it must be tried!

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I think it was reasonably crunchy when fresh (the fridge makes it chewier, of course). My homemade popcorn is usually nice and crunchy, but I’m not sure what my secret is. I use a tall soup pot with a perforated lid.

The caramel tends to get quite hard, also we drizzled the caramel instead of tossing. That was a mistake, as it causes many small pools of extremely hard caramel. Probably not great for one’s teeth. Next time, we’re going to try toffee or a thick caramel sauce, or at least toss the caramel to coat with a thin layer and avoid the lumps.

Also delicious popcorn: pop in walnut oil and truffle salt, then add more truffle salt to taste when popped. Fabulous, and way less effort than the bacon chocolate caramel variety.

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End times? The Rapture is upon us.
Pass another tub please…

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Interesting. I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!

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I wonder if I am in the only city in the world with two successful popcorn stores on the same block. Both have been there for years, and now I’m going to have to check them for exotics like these.