I feel like I don’t really need to add words to this post… the pictures speak for themselves. This dark chocolate caramel popcorn recipe is a copycat of the famous Harry & David Moose Munch. And if you were wanting to learn just how to make caramel popcorn, you could easily skip the chocolate drizzle and it would still be delicious.
There’s lots of flavored popcorn recipes out there, and there’s lots of ways to approach them. In this one, feel free to use any kind of nuts that you want, or skip them entirely. You can use microwave popcorn, pop kernels over the stove, or buy plain pre-popped popcorn. We had a bag of kernels hanging around the house, so we popped our own popcorn. If you aren’t sure how to go about doing that, here’s a quick tutorial:
How to make popcorn on the stove: Using a large heavy bottom saucepan, toss in a couple of individual kernels and about 2 TBS of oil. Cover the pan with a lid. Heat on medium heat until you hear those few kernels pop. Quickly add 1/2 cup of kernels and return the lid to the pot. Begin shaking the pan continuously as the popcorn pops, and remove from heat once the popping subsides to one pop per 2-3 seconds. This will yield about 16 cups of popped popcorn, so if you’re making Moose Munch, you’ll have a bit extra to salt and flavor however you like!
| Dark Chocolate Caramel Popcorn (Moose Munch Copycat) |
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- 12 cups popped popcorn
- 1.5 cups nuts of choice (peanuts, pecans, cashews, etc)
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- ¾ cup butter
- ½ cup light corn syrup
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1.5 tsp shortening
- Preheat oven to 250F
- Spread popped popcorn and nuts into a large roasting pan, or divide between two pans.
- In a heavy bottom saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup. Cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, or until mixture comes to a boil.
- Continue boiling for 2 minutes.
- Remove pan from heat and stir in baking soda.
- Pour warm mixture over popcorn and nuts and stir well so that the popcorn is coated.
- Bake for 60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and transfer popcorn to wax paper, don’t break into chunks.
- Allow to cool completely.
- Once cooled, melt chocolate chips with shortening in the microwave in 30 second intervals on 50% power, stirring after each one. Alternately, you can melt chocolate in a double boiler.
- Using a fork or spoon, generously drizzle chocolate over the popcorn and let stand 3-4 hours until chocolate is set. Break into pieces and enjoy!
I found this recipe for caramel gives the popcorn a good coating, but if you want to really coat those suckers, feel free to increase the amount of caramel by 50%!
You can drizzle the chocolate over the caramel using a spoon or a fork – I found that to be the easiest way with the fastest clean-up. You can also place the chocolate into a ziploc bag, nip off the corner with a pair of scissors, and squeeze it on that way.
This recipes makes a lot of popcorn, so feel free to cut it down if you’re just looking to whip up a quick snack. We packaged this up in cellophane bags for Christmas gifts this year, and we still had some leftover!
About Erin
I’ve recently almost lit my kitchen on fire while making kettle corn…which was delicious…but I’ve been dreaming about bigger and better (with no fires), and caramel corn has edged into the corner of my mind…think I could make a home made simple syrup instead of corn syrup? I live in China right now, and I don’t know if you can get that for cooking purposes here…
Hi Christine! Hmm… I’m not sure about using a simple syrup, but I have heard of using a dash of lemon juice or cream of tartar in place of the corn syrup in caramel recipes. I haven’t tried it myself, though, so I don’t know how that would affect the outcome of this particular recipe. Let me know if you try it!