Carn’Evil’ Corn

This year it’s all about Carnival food! All the old time favorites, from ice cream, funnel cakes, popcorn and beyond with a spooky fun Halloween twist. Ghoul at Heart may be a new space for me to share Halloween recipes, but I’m not new to Halloween food. I’ve spent the last seven years sharing them on my blog, Castellon’s Kitchen, where each year I’d pick a theme to plan my decorating and recipes around so that if you wanted to throw a party for friends or a festive Halloween dinner with family, the food and decorating ideas are all in one spot.  So lets get started…

First up, this super easy Carn’evil’ Corn!   This recipe is so simple it’s almost not worthy of a whole blog post if not for how much fun I had styling the shots to capture the feel of a vintage carnival. Most of the ‘work’ of this recipe , if you want to call it that, involved coffee staining the small popcorn boxes that I got from the Dollar Tree to make them look vintage. I spent a bit of time spraying the boxes with coffee, letting them dry and spraying again until I got the right look. Of course I could of just used a dry brush paint to speed it up, but I like the look of the splattered patina.

As far as the recipe goes, the easier, the better. Especially if you have a party to throw. Having a quick easy snack that your guests can munch on throughout the evening keeps everyone happy. This recipe makes plenty of caramel so you can use a little or a lot depending on how sweet you want it. I opted for a little so that the blood red caramel didn’t turn into a red glob of popcorn. But make it to your taste. Another easy shortcut is that I used buttered and salted microwave popcorn so there’s no need to add salt to the caramel, there’s plenty of it on the popcorn itself.  If you run out, it’s easy to pop a few more bags, reheat the caramel sauce and drizzle on a new batch. Enjoy!