"flavored popcorn" news and stories

Happy National Caramel Popcorn Day!

On the heels of yesterday's National Caramel Day, today's food holiday is a slightly more savory twist on the typically saccharine treat. Caramel popcorn is an easy alternative to the usual salty-buttery palate, coating the kernels with a thin, pleasantly sweet crust.

We vouch for this caramel popcorn recipe from blogger Coconut & Lime, who coats the popped popcorn in a mix of brown sugar, corn syrup, vanilla, salt and baking soda before tossing the mixture in the oven for a crispy glaze. Promises Rachel, "It has a good caramel taste and it's so easy, it's a great (low fat) alternative to just eating buttered popcorn on movie night."

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Happy National Popcorn Day!

Enjoy a bowl of the (relatively!) healthful treat any way you like: air-popped or oil-popped; yellow, red, white or blue; and flavors that span the rainbow -- butter, kettlecorn and caramel are barely the tip of the iceberg.

Blogger Erin Cooks reminisced about a popcorn mecca by the name of Bean's Corner Popcorn, which served whimsical bowls of "super sugary, brightly colored and uniquely flavored popcorn varieties," divulging her favorite flavor to be watermelon bubblegum. In an equally visual rendition, pictured here, her "Pretty Pretty Princess Pink Party Popcorn" uses white chocolate and red food coloring to create this fanciful snack.

What's your favorite flavored popcorn? Place your vote and share your corn-based creations in the comments.

Food blog Family Style Food recently posted a recipe for making a delicious popcorn flavored with rosemary. I am not a huge rosemary fan, but the post got me to thinking about other ways to flavor popcorn besides the usual melted butter and salt. My friends think I'm slightly odd for sprinkling my popcorn with salt and black pepper, but I can't see why it's any odder than Salt and Pepper flavored Kettle Chips. I'm pretty sure there are other ways people flavor their popcorn that's infinitely more interesting. I mean come on, we just saw bacon popcorn, right?

So, do you sprinkle or flavor your popcorn with something slightly out of the ordinary?

Lesser Evil snacks are flavored variations on kettle and caramel corn. Sweet and crunchy, the flavors include Black&White, SinNamon and Peanut Butter & Choco, in addition to caramel and original kettle varieties, which gives them some options that other purveyors of kettle corns aren’t really offering. They come in very clever packaging, as well. The boxes each have short stories explaining the origins of each flavor and even the vacuum-sealed inner bags have cute cartoons and amusing slogans on them.

Nicole's Review:

I had the original flavor and the new Peanut Butter & Choco. The original was everything that caramel corn should be: lightly glazed, crisp, sweet and buttery. It was incredibly addictive and perfect for munching, in no small part because it’s low fat! I loved that there were some larger clusters in the box, too. Somehow the larger bits just feel like more of a treat, sort of like finding a big, crunchy nugget in granola. The chocolate in the Peanut Butter & Choc flavor was not too sweet, much like cocoa, and gave a nice contrast to the more buttery, slightly sweet peanut butter bits. The chocolate was actually great when I isolated them and had them with some hot chocolate. Not being a fan of hot peanut drinks, I wasn’t able to find a suitable base for comparison, but they did pair well with the chocolate. You can buy them online.

I think these would make great snacks to sneak into movies. Not that I would do such a thing. This big purse? It's purely for fashion. Really.

Nachos are a great Super Bowl snack, especially when liberally topped with or dipped in salsas or guacamole. Not all kids can handle the spice of salsas or the green color of guacamole, which looks too healthy (too green, in other words) to taste good to them. I know that even after I started to enjoy salsas, at first I would only dip a chip into the sauce, carefully avoiding the possibility of getting any actual vegetables on my chip. But I loved nachos. Why? The combination of salt and cheese was simply too good to resist. Instead of making multiple batches of nachos to appease the kids while you are trying to watch the game, or having them pick through your tray in an attempt to find the "good" chips, make them their own snack: parmesan popcorn. Just liberally top hot microwave (or air popped) popcorn with finely shredded or powdered parmesan cheese, with or without a dash of garlic salt, too. The heat of the popcorn and a touch of butter will make sure the cheese stays firmly in place - and far away from any vegetable-filled salsas - for the whole game.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]