Pecan Pretzel Caramel Corn

Last week during our usual walk around South Austin, Todd and I stumbled upon a pecan tree that had just dropped a few pecans. We picked up a few and kept walking until we hit another tree…then another, and another. Each tree seemed to have dropped more nuts next than the next! We picked up as many as we could, then spent a few hours trying to remove their shells with a wrench because we didn’t own a nutcracker. A few days later we returned to Pecan Central and found enough pecans to justify spending $4.00 on a nutcracker. Even with an actual nutcracker, shelling pecans is a lot of work, but a few tricks we found on the Internet such as cracking near the tip first and storing the pecans overnight before shelling were helpful. Eventually, we had enough pecans to make this caramel corn.

I was going to call it “Pecan Pie Caramel Corn” but it didn’t really taste like pecan pie at all, so I added pretzels and gave it this highly imaginative name. The recipe is the perfect size because it fills one roasting pan, but still leaves enough room for stirring. Most recipe say to boil caramel corn coating for 5 minutes, but I’ve made this one several times now using a three minute boil, so I feel safe recommending that.