The Best Homemade Cracker Jack

A simple, delicious recipe to make America's classic snack treat, Cracker Jack, at home!

Course Snack

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 45

Total Time 1 30

Servings 1/2 to 12 1/2 cups depending on how much popcorn used

Calories 355kcal

Author Toni Dash

Ingredients

10-12 cups of popped Popcorn (about ¾ cups unpopped when using a stove top popper)*
1 ¼ cups Dark Brown Sugar
¼ cup Dark Corn Syrup
10 tablespoons unsalted Butter , cut into pieces about 1 tablespoon each
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 cup Spanish Peanuts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place popcorn in a large, deep baking or roasting pan; selecting a size which will allow easy coating of the popcorn and turning it during baking without it spilling out of the pan.
In a medium-large sauce pan, combine the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter and salt. Bring the mixture to a low boil, stirring constantly with a whisk to melt sugar and fully combine all ingredients. Continue to whisk mixture for 1-2 minutes following the sugar melting.
Sprinkle the peanuts on the popcorn. Pour the caramel mixture over the popcorn and peanuts and turn the popcorn over in the caramel sauce to fully coat, scooping any up from the bottom of the pan onto the popcorn.
Place in the preheated oven. Every 10-15 minutes, remove the pan and scoop any caramel from the bottom of the pan back into the popcorn to coat the popcorn thoroughly. Return to the oven. Continue this process 3-4 times until the popcorn has cooked for about 45 minutes.
Turn popcorn out in a single layer onto parchment or wax paper and allow to cool fully.**

Notes

*for lighter coating use 12 cups popcorn; for a heavy coating use 10 cups popcorn.

**In my research I discovered mention of difficulties when making similar caramel corn in highly humid conditions. Based on this I'd suggest making this Cracker Jack on low humidity days.

Nutrition