Halloween Caramel Corn

1. Preheat the oven to 250 F. Have two large sheet pans handy.
2. Put a large pot over a medium heat, and add the oil and popcorn. Put a lid on the pot, with a small gap so that steam can escape. Pop the corn until there are a few seconds between pops, and it sounds like they are mostly cooked.
3. Dump the popped corn onto a large sheet pan and sprinkle with kosher salt. Remove any un-popped kernels that you can find
4. In the same pot that you made the popcorn, melt the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt together. Let them come to a boil boil, then continue to stir them for about 10 minutes, until the caramel is bubbling and amber colored.
5. While that’s cooking, in a tiny bowl, mix the baking soda and vanilla together so that the soda is mostly dissolved.
6. When the caramel is ready pull the pot off of the heat, and quickly stir in the vanilla and baking soda. The caramel should get very light and frothy. Then immediately pour the popped popcorn into the caramel, and gently fold the caramel into the corn to try to coat it.
7. Transfer the popcorn to the sheet pans (I divided it between 2). Put the sheet pans in the preheated oven (250 F) and bake the popcorn for about 15 minutes. Then gently stir the popcorn into the melting caramel until the popcorn is better coated. Bake for another 15 minutes, and then remove pans from the oven. Give the corn one final stir to coat the popcorn and then add the candy, cookie crumbles and pretzels while the popcorn is still hot. Set the pans aside and allow them to cool.
8. When the popcorn is totally cool, it will have a nice, thin, crispy coating. Store in airtight containers.