Cinnamon Roll Popcorn

I love snacks. I'm a muncher... thankfully the older I get the less I sit and study, I felt like probably 80% of the time I "study" .. I'm actually eating or my mind is wandering towards some sort of food making thing... on my trip to Disneyland last weekend, I snacked my heart out. I guess vacations also make my diet horrible... all of us brought a ton of snacks for the road trip/ room/ lines... it was amazing. One of the goodies was this cinnamon bun flavored popcorn by Popcornopolis... it was so inspiring... so I tried to make my dupe of it... I tried to make it MUCH less sweet/ less caramel-y... wooo boy was the "real" stuff SWEET!!  So this is what I came up with (it's probably healthier too!).. I read a few recipe, and decided to just wing it. I popped up popcorn stove top... for the first time ever... (so fun!) and made the sauce in the microwave.. I then dried it out/ crisped it up in the oven... I just hope that the next day's snack will be as good as this one. It was tasty! The only thing I'd change is to make much more! You really can't just eat one handful of this stuff!...

Oh yes, I'd like to mention... that this is a whole lot cheaper than what you would buy this for at the stores... I had all of these ingredients on hand at mostly all times ( sweetened condense milk - La Lechera found in a squeeze tube bottle )... I think this cost around $1-1.50 to make for 4 quarts of popcorn!

Cinnamon Roll Popcorn Recipe :
Adapted from : http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/09/cinnamon-caramel-corn-with-pecans-white-chocolate-aka-cinnamon-bun-popcorn/

1/2 cup pop corn kernels
3 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
3.5-4 quart pot with lid

3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp corn syrup
2 tbsp butter ( cut into pieces)  ( I have tried it with 6 tbsp of butter, and it worked out well, took longer in the oven, but much more butter/caramel-y !)
1.5 tbsp sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
a large microwave safe bowl

1/2 cup white chocolate chips
2 tsp canola oil

Before you begin...
1. Preheat oven at 250 degrees

Make the popcorn:
1. Heat your pot at around medium/ medium high with the 3 tbsp of oil (+ salt if you'd like) drop in 3 kernels into the pot and cover it.

2. When all the kernels popped, pour in the rest of the kernels, cover lid, and shake away from heat, for 15 seconds.

3. Place back on burner. Continue to shake the pot over medium heat, and wait for all of them to pop, remove from heat when you don't hear a lot of popcorn popping anymore. Pour into a HUGE bowl, I used a 8 quart stock pot.

( Tip: when pop corn is popping, remove the lid for a little bit to vent the pot every so often, don't remove the lid completely or you'll have pop corn exploding all over your kitchen!)

Make the sauce:
1. In a large microwave safe bowl, place the sugar and cinnamon in it, and mix until combined. Place butter, corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk on top of the sugar, and microwave for 30 seconds.
2. Stir, and microwave for 2 minutes, stir, and microwave for 1 minute, stir in vanilla and baking soda, and QUICKLY pour it all over your popcorn, MIX QUICKLY or it will set up or clump up.

(Tip: you want to distribute the sauce as much as possible.. I didn't use much liquid so my "caramel" was thick... You could always thing out your sauce more by adding more butter, but the sight of using 1 stick of butter for popcorn scared me too much...I might experiment with half and half to thin out the sauce next time)

3. IMMEDIATELY Pour popcorn mixture onto baking sheet in an even layer, Bake for 30-40 minutes in the preheated oven (@250) stirring the mixture every 10 minutes.

White Chocolate Drizzle:
1. In a microwave safe bowl, place the white chocolate chips + oil, and stir, microwave in 30 seconds intervals, stirring after every interval making sure the chocolate isn't burning, it should take around 1-1.5 minutes (I have a bad microwave... and it took around 1.5 minutes)
2. using a fork, drizzle the white chocolate over the popcorn
3. refrigerate for at least 15 minutes, or until the chocolate is set (or if you have room in your freezer, you can freeze it for 5 minutes!)
4. remove from fridge, and break up the pieces. let the popcorn come to room temp before storage

Made this recipe again... used 6 tbsp of butter instead of the 2.. in my other pics... see the diff? Much sweeter,  and caramel like... but also took over an hour in the oven! 

Storage tips: try to minimize the exposure to open air as it will get stale quickly, I used a tupperware/ plastic baggies for storage, they didn't last long tho!... not because of how I stored it... but because all my friends ate it quickly! ... It was a wonderful thing to munch on while listening to our 2.5 hours of lecture (with NO breaks!) about how people like to sue dentists.... Oh what a glorious Monday morning.