Patriotic Cinnamon Bear Popcorn

I love cinnamon bears, so when I found this recipe on Six Sisters' Stuff the other day I had to try it! Since we have been watching the Olympics all morning I decided to put a patriotic spin on it as well.

Ingredients

3 bags of popped popcorn

4 cups mini marshmallows

1 bag cinnamon bears (cut up)

11/3 cups sugar

2 sticks of butter

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

Food coloring (optional)

Start by popping your popcorn. Nathan didn't think buttered popcorn would work well, so we used regular popcorn and popped it in the microwave in paper lunch bags. Put 1/4 cup popcorn in paper bag, fold over top twice, and microwave around 2 minutes. Spread the popped popcorn on 3 waxed paper lined baking sheets. I realized after the fact that I should have picked out my seeds.

Sprinkle around 1 1/3 cup of mini marshmallows on each pan.

Then divided the cinnamon bears between the pans.

Me ok your butter, corn syrup, and sugar over medium, stirring constantly until boiling. The original recipe called for 2 cubes. I wasn't sure what a cube of butter was, and found that it was either a stick or 2 tablespoons. I went with the stick, so I used 2 sticks as my 2 cubes. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes. Then add vanilla and food coloring. I used blue food coloring to make my patriotic popcorn (with the yellow of the butter it turned a little green, but it is still mostly blue).

Pour over the pans of popcorn and gently stir. After it was somewhat stirred we poured it all in a big bowl and stirred it a little more. It helped even out the uneven pouring of the sugar solution.

I have to say I will change the recipe a bit the next time I make it. I will either halve the recipe and keep the number of cinnamon bears the same or double the cinnamon bears and keep the rest the same. I just think it needed more cinnamon bear goodness.