Thursday, February 12, 2015

Quick and Easy Last Minute Valentine Gift


I love Valentine's Day.
And St. Patrick's Day.
Easter.
Christmas.
Cinco de Mayo.
Groundhog's Day.

I love any reason to decorate, bake treats and give a gift.

The girls are SO INCREDIBLY blessed to be taught by a list of amazing teachers every Tuesday.
Each month we try to give them a little gift to encourage and say thank you.
Because there are about 10 people, we have to keep our gifts fairly inexpensive.
But I'm a true believer that no matter how little the gift, 
it truly is the thought that counts.
Just something to let that person know you're thinking of them.

And cute packaging helps too.

This is what we created for our February gift

 I'm a sucker for cute bags.
I probably bought these 6 months ago knowing that we could use them for a gift.
Target end-caps are a great place to find cute bags on clearance.
I have a whole box of many different kinds and they come in quite handy!


We started with good ol' popcorn.
(raise your hand if you feed your family popcorn for dinner once a week)



Then we made some deeeeeeeeelicious caramel and drizzled it all over.


Baked it for about an hour.

 Filled cellophane bags.


Then made them all cute and ready to deliver!


It doesn't take a lot of time or need to cost a lot of money to let someone know you're thinking of them.

Here's the yummy recipe we used.
It's my Amazing Aunt Mary's.
(she's an incredible cook)


Ingredients:
1/2 cup popcorn kernals, freshly popped
2 cups whole almonds
1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 250.  Generously butter a large baking pan.  mix popcorn and almonds in prepared pan and stick it in the oven while you make the caramel.

Combine sugar, butter, and corn syrup in saucepan.  Whisk over med-low heat until butter is melted and sugar dissolved.  Attach candy thermometer to side of pan, increase heat to high, and boil without stirring until thermometer reaches 255 F. (about 4 minutes).  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, salt, and baking soda. (it will bubble up a bit)  Pour over the popcorn and gently stir until coated.  Bake for about an 1 hour 20 minutes- stirring every 20 minutes or so.  cool completely in pan.

You may want to double the recipe because it will be munched fast!



3 comments:

  1. I love your new blog, and i'm so glad to see you're back :-)

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  2. That looks amazing! We have a wonderful popcorn shop on Main Street so I am much more likely to walk over there and but some but if we were neighbors I would surely keep my fingers crossed for a delivery from you!

    ReplyDelete