Lantern Cracker Jack
- Total Time
- 1 hour 20 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 8cups freshly popped popcorn (from about ⅓ cup raw kernels)
- 2cups plain puffed rice
- 2cups roasted, salted peanuts
- ⅓cup raw corn kernels
- ¼cup black sesame seeds
- 1teaspoon five-spice powder (recipe follows)
- ¼teaspoon baking soda, sifted
- 1stick unsalted butter
- 1cup light-brown sugar, firmly packed
- ⅓cup sorghum (see note)
- ½teaspoon kosher salt
- ½teaspoon vanilla extract
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
711 calories; 46 grams fat; 14 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 19 grams monounsaturated fat; 8 grams polyunsaturated fat; 68 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 39 grams sugars; 16 grams protein; 336 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Preheat the oven to 225 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread the popcorn, rice and peanuts evenly on the sheet pan and set aside. In a small bowl, combine the sesame seeds, five-spice powder and baking soda and set aside.
- Step 2
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the brown sugar, sorghum and salt and stir to dissolve. Bring the mixture to a boil and continue to cook until the syrup reaches 250 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 5 minutes. Immediately remove from the heat and add the vanilla extract and sesame-seed mixture. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon to combine.
- Step 3
Pour the hot syrup evenly over the popcorn and nuts.
- Step 4
Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes to coat evenly. Remove from the oven and let cool to room temperature.
Private Notes
Comments
Where is the recipe for the five-spice powder, or the note on sorghum?
Yes! I loved this! Halved recipe and I'm kicking myself for not making a full batch. Had to cobble the 5 spice mix up myself and substituted a mix of barley syrup & corn syrup for the sorghum (takes me 30 minutes to get to nearest store and I wasn't about to wait). The 5 spice is barely noticeable ... and yet stays on your tongue in the most tantalizing manner. And I love the addition of puffed rice. Such a nice change of pace. Many thanks for recipe!
Big roasting pan. Add peanuts after syrup is mixed w/cereal, popcorn. Mix syrup in small pot so candy thermometer is deeper. ? 1/2 c popcorn with 3 Tbsp oil.
wooden spoon does matter, metal heat fluctuates too much. be gentle, but move quickly and vigorously when turning the coated candy or else you end up with uneven clumps, hard caramel chunks and uncoated cereal.
I don’t love five spice powder, so I used garam masala instead. Also didn’t want to buy sorghum syrup for just this recipe, so I used 1/2 barley syrup and 1/2 corn syrup. And my local grocer had only puffed kamut. This was great, even with all the substitutions - a versatile recipe that accommodates a lot of tweaking for taste and availability of ingredients.