yup, Alexa, I made them too. Yum!

I will be taking them to a party Tuesday night. :-)

My SIL called when I was making them and I had to email her the recipe - I'm guessing she made em too - lol.

Thanks (?) Linda!

{{!gwi}}

Stacy

I've made these with the popcorn twists (and love them), but never with Cheetos. Could someone please confirm if Cheetohs means the crunchy cheese flavoured sticks or the soft cheese flavoured puffs. Thanks.

they're the crunchy ones jade.

Here's the recipe.

Caramel Cheetos® - Linda C

2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup margarine - yes, for this one you must use margarine
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 - 21 oz. pkg. Cheetos® - crunchy kind

Mix sugar, margarine and corn syrup in pan. Bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and add soda. Stir until light in color and foamy. Spray a roasting pan (deep 10 x 14) with Pam. Put Cheetos® in pan. Pour the mixture over Cheetos® and stir, coating each piece. Place in oven at 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. Immediately, pour onto wax paper, or cookie sheets, sprayed with Pam. (This is the hard part.) VERY QUICKLY spread out as thin as possible. If not quick and spread out as thin as possible, you will get a big hard glob. After about 5 minutes, pull/break these apart even more and loosen them from the wax paper. If you don't, you'll have wax paper stuck to them when you go to eat them.
You will regret it if you don't double the batch as guests are going to demand MORE! You can bake batches together and add an extra 20 minutes to bake time. I do them separately because of having to work so quickly to keep them apart at the end. The one batch can almost get too hard while working with the other batch.

Told ya!!....;-)

i'm convinced. crunchy cheetos will now by on my shopping list. i'm somewhat a herr's snob, but for all the rave reviews, i'll grab a bag of cheetos.

maryanne

Ok, after all the rave reviews and seeing Stacy's pic I'm thinking this just might be a good thing... Too bad I can't make it while hubby is here, he'd probably try to eat the whole batch in one sitting... He loves caramel corn and cheese corn together... Oh well... I did save the recipe and pic though..

Rita

I'm going to have to try these...I can't imagine that they would be good but y'all have convinced me...adding cheetos the the shopping list for this week.

David

I'm going to give them a try too...just 'cause I can't imagine either !

I said they are addictive...you can't keep your fingers out of the jar...I sure didn't say they are Haute Cuisine!! Junk food, pure and simple...actually worse than Green Bean Casserole!!!!
Cheetoes with caramel corn glaze???? Now really!!!!
But they are good.....
Linda C

Made a batch of these this morning. I wasn't sure I understood the big appeal so I kept going back to try some just to see if I could understand the attraction........seems they are are all gone ; )

Oh well, lots of time left to make another batch before the kids get here............

Do you think that crack is made from cheetos and caramel?!?!?

Now I can stop after a few cheetos, and while I love caramel, I can get sugar overload pretty quick. I wonder what it is about this combo that is sooo ...gotta have more??!?!!?

I'm trying to get down a size not up...but they are tempting!

I made a double batch yesterday. They are pretty darned good. A big bag is going to work with Kim tomorrow and I've got a big bag for a friend...if I can keep my hands off it. Pure junk but it's got the sweet, salty and cheese flavors all together. What's not to like!

Nancy

Thanks, thanks alot!

I've been trying to ignore this thread for days.

Corn syrup is the enemy and now I have to go out and invite it into my kitchen.

Thanks, thanks alot!

I've currently got my fingers in the Chex mix jar....wonder which is worse? Chex mix...with extra butter and lots of salt....or cheetoes with butter and sugar?
Oy....
Linda C

I've got chex mix in the oven and was getting ready to make these but while reading the recipe I discovered it takes a 21 OZ. bag of cheetos. Mine is only 9 oz.($2.49) I just grabbed the normal sized bag while shopping...guess I'll be making these tomorrow or Saturday after another trip to the store.

David
(who should have read the recipe a little better...)

Ya wouldn't figure a recipe this simple could be ruined but I think I did it.

I've got a batch in the oven, about 7 minutes so far. I think I may have boiled it too hard for that 5 minutes. When I poured it over the cheetos, it got pretty dang stiff within seconds; not even enough time to thouroughly coat them. My only hope is that it liquifies in the oven enough to stir but I'm pretty doubtful. Someone earlier wondered if you make crack like this. I think I boiled the sugar to the crack stage. Does that count.

How depressing and embarassing- I have to tell my grandkids that I failed making a batch of caramel covered cheetos. what a loser...

michaelp

ok batch one is pretty sad. Maybe it's the butter. Since I sold out and bought some corn syrup, I sold my soul to the devil and got some margarine for batch two. If I am concerned about health at this point, I'm toying with the wrong recipe.

So second batch is in- I used margarine and didn't cook as long; maybe 3 minutes before adding the soda. It coated pretty well but it's gonna be a bear at the end seperating these bad boys.

Meanwhile back at the ranch... batch one looks pretty bad but thety sure do taste good! I'm gonna have to go up a dress size at least; Yeah I know, I'm a guy but I won't be able to get into my pants and the dress I'm looking at has an elastic waste band...

Thanks again Linda, servant of evil. Move over Jessy!

michaelp

Batch two is finished. Looks perfect, evenly coated, barely got them seperated. But the tatste isn't even close to the ones made with butter. Maybe one year I'll revisit this one and figure out the chemistry.

I'm going to waddle off to bed now....nighty nite.

LOL! Michael, your commentary is terrific. So what you're telling us is that you can go for really ugly but awesome taste or good looks and so-so taste. Hummph. Sounds like my dating choices back when I was single.

So, I wonder what would happen with half-butter, half margarine? Guess I'll find out becuase I read this to DH and he wants to try it. Actually, he wanted to try the same idea with Chex mix, too. I'm just not sure a bag of Cheetos is going to last long enough around me to think about caramelizing the addictive orange bombs. I make it a point not to buy them because I get hooked on them!

Batch two is finished. Looks perfect, evenly coated, barely got them seperated. But the tatste isn't even close to the ones made with butter. Maybe one year I'll revisit this one and figure out the chemistry.

Which one did you prefer according to taste? The butter or the margarine?

Guess

I made a batch of these for the day care party--the kids should be bouncing off the walls this afternoon. I did buy the big bag of Cheetos and it didn't seem to cover them as well as some of the pictures show. So, just to perfect the recipe, I bought the slightly smaller bag to try again.

I did use the famous non-stick foil you all speak so highly of to spread them out on and it worked like a charm--no worry about them sticking to the paper, only to each other.

Thank you for the recipe.

De

I don't think I could chew them or bite into them but I could gum them to death.
Sent the receipe on to DIL they look so good and I might make batch for DS here Thanks

The kids gobbled these up. Maybe it was the way I made them but I found that I needed the full recipe of caramel to do a regular size bag ( ie 1/2 the size bag called for)

No way would the amount of caramel I ended up with have covered a 21 oz bag of cheetos....maybe I cooked it too long.

Okay, margarine was so out of my thought process that I forgot to buy any. Is my batch going to fail with butter? Michael, I wasn't clear on whether your fav was w/butter or w/margarine.

I must be a freak! Those don't look or sound good to me at all!

I am convinced that you all are just high and have a bad case of "he munchies"! LOL

All the more for you, I guess.

Linda

mustang,

butter was the best tasting but i'm not sure if that or too long of a cook made it stiffin up so quick. i took the margarine batch to work and got rave reviews.

Linda, i know it sounds horrendous. Tastes a bit like caramel corn or fiddle faddles. You can't at all tell by the flavor that they were cheetos and no orange fingers

michaelp

Here's mine that I made today.
Didn't know the difference between cheetos and cheese puffs!
Mine are delicious!

Here is a link that might be useful: cheese puffs carmels

Stacy, that's a darn good photo! I'm replacing my photos (it looked like grubs and worms) with your photo! I think my photos were scary!

Smiles,
Sooz

Michael, that was the first thing DH said when I read this to him "Well, that solves the orange finger problem!"

I took a batch to work - they were a hit! There were a few people who looked down their nose at first, but after trying them, agreed that they were 'disturbingly addictive'.

TIP: The whole waxed paper or cookie sheet thing didn't sound like it was going to work for me, so after taking them out of the oven, I dumped them directly on my countertop. (I sprayed it with Pam first.) Worked very well since there was so much space to spread them out, and the counter cleaned up easily.

I used two pans sprayed with Pam.
Poured half from oven spread it out, then took the rest out of oven and spread in second pan.
Worked for me!

I just made a batch - they are addictive little things aren't they. And don't chew on the side with the loose filing!!

I got three tubs of them - one goes next door tonight for dinner, the other for Christmas Eve with the kids, and one for me.

I used margarine - only because I tend to actually follow a recipe the first time. I imagine butter would work as well, since that's what I usually (once before) make carmel with.

I mixed it in a big pot and used two cookie sheets with thay non-stick aluminum foil. I took them out every 15 minutes and turned the Cheetos over with two spatulas.

When they were done, I took one pan out and put half on one of my many "spare" cookie sheets and spread them out. I put the rest back in the oven. That way they didn't cool off too fast. Once one cookie sheet was done - I took the two sheets cooling out onto the porch - it's cold out today and broke apart any that were still sticking together.

I did the same for the second sheet in the oven, it worked well.

Now, every cookie sheet I own is dirty - but not to worry, my 36" single bowl farm sink holds them all lying flat. They'll be clean and dry in a jiffy. I knew I got that sink for some reason!

Have a wonderful Christmas.

I made these yesterday and even told my son they had the reputation of being "kitchen crack". I made them with butter, used two 9 oz bags instead of the 21 oz size of cheetos and staggered the cooking time so that one came out 15 min before the next tray.
They are okay. They taste a lot like saltine toffee without the chocolate. My kids didn't like them. I keep waiting for a definitive flavor to develop, but nothing as of yet. I sent a bag home with my MIL who liked them, but preferred the white trash I made over them.
Jo

Well, they were a big hit at my neighbor's dinner tonight. Everyone would take one and walk away, and come right back and take a handful. No one could believe what they were and all had a good laugh.

I have to email the recipe to everyone there.

Ok, I've been resisting, partly because it sounds bad. But when I went out to get a replacement for the eggplant that I completely over-roasted, and just happened to pass the Cheetos, and just happened to remember that I'd also need margarine and corn syrup...

I'm so freakin stuffed right now.

p.s. Linda C - DW, who now knows you by name, wants to know if you have any other good recipes. LOL!!!

I made them last night and I guess they are okay. I'll see what others think over the next couple of days. I was tasting/munching on a lot of stuff so maybe I was just full of junk and sugar...LOL!

David

David, that's what I thought when I made them. But as someone commented, this is what crack must be made out of, because I ate a frightening amount of these 'not so great' things. I have a mental image of Linda C, standing on a street corner in a trench coat lined with baggies of caramel cheetos.

Linda, remember you cannot stand within 1500 feet of a school ;)

Hey - Does anyone want to educate me on the science of the baking soda? I was wondering why it was needed (in fact I almost skipped the step because I missed it when writing out the recipe) but then it obviously did "something" very noticable.

Based on a recipe search, it seems that the baking soda makes the caramel sauce set up faster and become a hard coating.

I noticed that in caramel recipes used for a topping, or in candy, the recipe doesn't have baking soda as an ingredient, but when it's used for caramel corn or apples or Cheetos, it does have baking soda. When I made the Cheetos, I noticed that once the Cheetos cooled, the coating was pretty hard and they didn't stick back together.

A few people mentioned that they don't add the baking soda to the recipe, so their caramel corn is a little softer.

LOL Weed! They were gone in a flash tonight at our Christmas Eve gathering....and yes, I went back to the bowl more than once!! Took them a while to figure out they were cheetos.

Thanks to Linda too....another one moves to the T&T file.

David