Dinosaur and Caramel Corn

This was a big week for Jack at school. The preschool had a Halloween party where the kids were able to bring costumes and dress up. Jack was really excited to be a dinosaur! Ms. Martin, his teacher, was a bottle of ketchup. Pretty funny.

Here is Jack and his class at the party.

Here is my little dino and his superhero and monster friend.

And here is what I signed up to bring - oven baked caramel corn!

I remember making caramel corn with my mom when I was younger and impatiently waiting for it to bake in the oven so we could eat it. My mom and I were discussing this a few weeks ago and she said she still had the recipe that her good friend Barb Halliday gave to her. She searched and found the old beat up recipe card with the original recipe. I thought this was pretty cool that she still had it after all these years. I was so excited to make it!

This is actually my third batch this month. I brought it to the kid's fall party at church and it was a big hit so I knew it would be the perfect allergy free treat to bring to Jack's party.

Oven Caramel Corn

Ingredients:
4 quarts popped corn
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1 scant cup margarine
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Generously butter a large roasting pan and put popcorn in pan.
In a large saucepan combine sugar, syrup, margarine and salt. Melt slowly on low heat and then boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla and baking soda. Stir and it will become foamy.
Pour at once over popcorn and mix carefully so you don't crush the popcorn. A big slotted spoon works best.
Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
Cool and store in tightly covered containers. This also freezes well.

This is what it should look like when it is finished baking.

Here are the sprinkles I used:

I sprinkled some fall colored sprinkles on the caramel corn after it was done to give it a festive look. Then I bagged it up into cute individual sized portions for Jack to pass out to his class.