Green Popcorn

We have fun giving away treats when holidays come around, and this time I thought we'd try something new.

St. Patrick's Day Popcorn! It is just a regular candied-popcorn recipe, but I added green food colouring to make it festive. I've seen coloured popcorn that is made with Koolaid to give it a colour and flavour, but I don't know how to make that.

The first thing you need to do is pop some popcorn. You'll need about 16 cups of popped corn. Whenever I made it, I always sift out the kernels that don't pop so that as you are eating your treat you don't crack a tooth. The kids were very into the sorting and took care of all of it for me.

Have the popcorn ready in a large bowl before you start making your candy.

Then in a medium sized pot, you'll need to combine 2 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup of corn syrup, and as much green food colouring as you want. When it is all melted together, add 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, and a pinch of creme of tartar. (If you don't have that, you can make it without)

After it gets boiling, cook it for 4-5 minutes without stirring. Then take it off the heat and add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 teaspoon of baking soda. The candy will start to lighten up and get really frothy.

Quickly pour it over the prepared popcorn and stir to coat. (I didn't let the kids do this part since it would really hurt to get a drop on your hand as you stir)

Pour the popcorn into a large roaster, or some kind of pan with edges on it, and bake for 1 hour at 200 F. Every fifteen minutes or so, stir the popcorn around.

While it was cooking, I made up some cute little leprechaun tags. (I got the image from google)

Once it was all cooled off, we put it into clear cellophane baggies and tied them at the top.

And then we attached our gift tags with a little curly ribbon. So cute! Tonight after supper we are going to go pass out these little green surprises to a few families, and then come home and eat the rest of it ourselves!