If anyone lives South of Montgomery Alabama and can make this recipe work, I’ll give you a full beauty pageant curtsey and a rousing round of applause.
It’s late October, and temperatures here in Fairhope keep bopping around in the 80’s with humidity completely ruining my football season hair-do. It’s supposed to be time for sweaters, hot chocolate and bonfires, but the bonfire we had drove everyone inside to seek relief in the AC.
I saw this recipe for easy “Monster Munchies” and decided it was so cute, I had to make it to take on our vacation. I completely knew what I was up against, but thought if I cranked the air-conditioner down to a cool 70°, the candy would surely set hard and crunchy.
Ha. When will I learn not to poke the monster named Humidity?
First, I piled all the crunchy, salty, sweet and tangy things together in a big bowl, never minding that I can’t stand the waxiness of candy corn, but because my son loves it so much and wants me to find it on-the-cobb for him to eat with his meals, I decided to throw it in. I drew the line at the waxy-chalky pumpkins, but actually, they would have looked adorable.
I mixed the ingredients, and cooked the candy part to the hard candy stage. And it made a huge bowl of yummy treats . . . coated with sticky, gooey mess. It never got hard and crackly like it was supposed to do, but it tasted pretty good – in a sticky sort of way.
The silver lining to this oppressive fall heat is I can still wear shorts outside and not freeze to death. That’s a good thing, right?
Here’s how I’ll adapt it next time for humid climates . . . just combine all the goodies, sweet and salty, add cute holiday waxed corn and pumpkins, omit the popcorn that ends up being a soggy sponge, then add CRACKER JACKS that already have the crunchy caramel goodness on them that everyone loves. It isn’t really a recipe this way, just a pretty combination of snacks. And what’s wrong with that?
No need to pour goop all over it. Just eat it like it is. And like it.
Because after all, you know my (and your) main goal is to just find another cute thing to put in a cellophane bag, right? Stick a leaf shaped note on it, and the teacher/mailman/neighbor likes it just as much. Without the dripping, sticky, humid mess.
Here’s the original recipe for all of you who are bragging about being able to snuggle by the fire while wearing  your cute boots:
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup of honey
1/2 cup white sugar
2/3 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a large bowl, mix all your munchies together.
- In a medium saucepan, bring the honey, sugar, salt, peanut butter and butter to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring for five minutes. Remove from heat, and drizzle caramel over popcorn mixture. Stir to coat.
- Spread the popcorn mixture on two baking sheets covered in parchment.
- When cool, break apart and serve.
Simple.
*
Eerily familiar, I checked, and sure enough, I’ve had a big failure with other “simple” recipes as well. (HERE).
Sigh.