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1
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
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2
Pop corn and put in a large roasting pan. We use an air popper, but you could use a Dutch oven and do it over the stove top with 1/4 cup vegetable oil to 1/2 cup of corn kernels. Keep the pan moving as soon as you hear the kernels start to pop (make sure you are careful to not get any unpopped kernels in the mix, you dont want to break someones tooth!).
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3
In a medium-sized sauce pan, melt butter. Add brown sugar and Karo syrup, and cook until it gets bubbly. Then let cook for 3 more minutes.
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4
Remove from heat and add salt and baking soda stir well, it will foam up a bit from the soda.
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5
Once you have that mixed well, pour evenly over the popped corn in the roaster, take a big spatula or sturdy spoon and toss well. Try to make sure all popcorn is covered.
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6
Put in the oven and set the timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take it out of the oven and stir it around, making sure you get all the caramel from the bottom turned up to the top of the popcorn.
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7
Repeat this TWO more times. Remove from the oven and spread out on parchment paper. Let cool.
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8
For the gingerbread version, use a 1/4 cup molasses and 1/4 cup Karo syrup instead of the original 1/2 cup Karo syrup. Then add 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger and 2 generous dashes of nutmeg at the end of the cook time, before adding the salt and baking soda. Turn your oven up to 325 degrees and repeat the end of the above recipe. It will seem like it is burning, but just make sure you keep moving the caramel corn around well in the pan at 10-minute intervals.
