Loco for Hoco! {Recipe: Churro Popcorn}

With fall comes homecoming for high schoolers. These kids take their homecoming pretty serious! Our house has been taken over with the homecoming float building crew. Which means we have had a house full of hungry teenagers.

As far as I am concerned, there is only so much pizza and chips you can serve. Therefore I set out to try and think of something different. Popcorn is always good and who doesn't like churros?!? So with this popcorn and a big pot of homemade turkey chili, I think we have some happy, well fed, teenagers!

Churro Popcorn

Recipe is adapted from one found at: http://homemadehooplah.com/recipes/churro-popcorn/

Ingredients for cinnamon, butter and sugar coating:

1 cup popcorn kernels
1 cup butter 
1 1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla

Ingredients for churro sugar coating:

1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. In a small bowl, mix together the powdered sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the churro sugar coating, then set aside. 
2. Prepare popcorn using your preferred method. I like using an air popper. Place popped popcorn in a very large bowl or a brown paper bag (this is my favorite trick to coating popcorn), set aside.
3. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add sugar, salt, cinnamon, corn syrup and vanilla. Simmer and stir constantly until the mixture is smooth and sugar granules have desolved. This should take about 2-4 minutes. 
4. Slowly pour the cinnamon/butter coating over the popped popcorn a little at a time. Use a large spatula to gently stir and coat the popcorn. Continue to pour a little and stir until the popcorn is well coated. Better yet, using the brown paper bag method coats the popcorn easily (this is a trick I learned years ago and it's a great way to evenly coat popcorn), pour a little of the cinnamon/ butter coating over the popcorn in the brown paper bag. Fold the top of the bag over and give it a good shake; repeat until all the cinnamon/butter coating is used. Then fold the top of the bag over again and vigorously shake the bag. 
6. Sprinkle the about 1/3 of the churro sugar over the cinnamon/butter coated popcorn and toss to coat. If using the brown bag method, add 1/3 of the churro sugar to the bag,  fold over the top of the bag and give it a shake. Repeat whichever process you use until all the churro sugar is used. 

Happy Shacking!