Happy Valentine's Day!

The boys are getting a little old for Valentine's Day celebrations. Matthew flat out refuses to take Valentines to school. Cal wasn't interested in writing out Valentines to every kid in his class, but he did want to take a snack for the class party tomorrow. So I decided to take care of both issues in one fell swoop.

I had these little zip-top Valentine bags in the house and decided to whip up some pink popcorn to fill them. Valentine and snack all in one!

Remember Lucky Elephant popcorn? I haven't had that stuff since I was a kid, but the pink candy coating is so Valentiney. And luckily there are dozens of recipes online that mimic it. Here's the consensus I came up with.

Pink Candy Corn

1 cup popcorn kernels, popped

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup half & half

1 Tbsp white corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
pink or red food colouring

Mix sugar, half & half, corn syrup and salt in a pot and heat on medium stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a boil and cook until the syrup measures 235°C on a candy thermometer. Remove from hear, stir in vanilla and food colouring, pour over popcorn and mix well (on my first batch I found that a lot of the syrup ran through to the bottom of the bowl and made the popcorn at the bottom very sticky). When the candy coating starts to cool and the popcorn begins to separate, spread it on parchment lined cookie sheets and allow to cool for about half an hour.

It was a breeze to make, and the kids thought it was so delicious that they immediately snarfled down half of it. I was forced to make second batch.

Cal managed to stay focused long enough to package most of the popcorn and get them tagged with "From Callum" stickers.

They're all lined up and ready to go. It's a good thing they're leaving the house, because that stuff is seriously addictive!