Bacon Popcorn with Rum Salted Caramel

Bacon Popcorn with Rum Salted Caramel

Ingredients:

• Popcorn kernels
• Bacon
• 1 Cup Brown sugar
• 1/2 Cup Rum (dark or spiced)
• 4 TBSP Unsalted Butter
• Kosher Salt
• 1/3 Cup Heavy Whipping cream
• Dome

Directions:

1. Preheat one zone of your Blackstone on High and one on Medium, place a frying or sauté pan in the corner of the High zone. Add 1 Cup of Brown Sugar to the pan as well as 1/2 Cup of Rum. Stir to incorporate the sugar and rum and let it sit. It’s important to not stir anymore at this process. Let it sit. The reducing will start to happen and you’ll begin to see bubbles developing. The bigger the bubbles get the better. Remember, do not stir.
2. On the zone set to medium, we’re going to cook our bacon. I recommend 6 slices of thick cut bacon. Two reasons for this much bacon. The first is you need plenty of bacon fat to cook the popcorn in later. The second is, who doesn’t love lots of bacon in their bacon popcorn!? Note, do not get rid of the bacon fat, we’re going to use that to pop our popcorn. Cook till crispy and remove too cool.
3. When your sauce has reduced to the point where you see large bubbles it’s time to add 1/3 Cup heavy whipping cream and stir immediately. You’ll notice it starts to have a much creamier consistency. As soon as you’ve incorporated the cream add 2 TBSP of unsalted butter and mix in immediately. Lastly add 2 pinches of kosher salt, and mix. Once incorporated you can remove to cool
4. Time to pop some corn. Turn your medium zone up to high, pull some bacon fat back to the heat zone and add your popcorn kernels. Don’t add to many kernels all at once. Probably 1/2 a cup at a time, add 1 tbsp of butter, and cover with your XL Basting dome or a large aluminum tin pan. You’ll hear the popping right away. This shouldn’t take more than 2-3 mins to finish popping.
5. While your popcorn pops chop your bacon into small bits and set aside.
6. In a large bowl or tin pan add all your popcorn, season with salt and and drizzle you rum caramel sauce over the top (not to much at first) and lastly your bacon bits. Gently mix to coat all the popcorn with the sauce. You might need to add more sauce as you mix it all up. Once it’s time to serve I like to garnish with a light drizzle of the camel sauce and top with more bacon bits. ENJOY!