So yesterday I fired her up with visions of eating the finished product while Josh and I watched the Jim & Pam Have Their Baby episode of The Office. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite to be. Not because the popcorn didn't turn out. No no no. Rather, because it turned out so well that I basically couldn't wait and ate it all off the pan the second it was done, so I was mostly full by the time we turned on the TV.
Oddly, I had all the ingredients in the house. Presuming, of course, that microwave popcorn is considered acceptable. But Josh evidently has a thing for buying mass quantities of nuts so we have like an entire shelf-full of them. And I can't say I was unhappy to use some of them up.
The recipe is very easy. Basically, you make popcorn and then throw in some nuts. In a pan on the stove you mix up the delicious coating, which you then pour on the popcorn. You toss to mix, then throw it in the oven to bake it at a very low temp for an hour. Then you eat yourself into an insulin coma.
Let me just say this: This shit is good. Like, really good. Like I hovered over the stove and just ate it in some sort of unstoppable zombie trance good. Cathy suggests that you are supposed to let it cool before you eat it, but with the oven at just 200 degrees, it was plenty cool enough to eat the second it came out, I assure you. Having had some remainders for breakfast this morning (healthy), I am going to go out on a limb and say I like it better as 'fresh' as possible.
I will also say this: I didn't love the almonds. Not sure why. Was it that they were toasted? Did I over-toast and burn them? Do I just not like them with the sweet butter crunch? I don't know. Next time I might go straight Crunch 'n Munch and go for peanuts. I'll experiment. But there WILL be a next time.
It's not a huge amount of effort and the rewards are pretty great. Given, you could just make even less effort and get the store-bought kind. I mean, it's not like it's healthy. It's popcorn in a sugar/butter coating. But then I think, yes, and the store-bought kind is also full of God Knows What chemicals and additives and chicken feet and bug carcasses. Which means, this kind is better for you. Screw you store-bought kind!
For the record: Josh branded the Almond Butter-Crunch Popcorn as good, but a little salty. Josh is clearly deranged. It is perfect. I will make an appointment for him at the doctor forthwith.
Oh yeah. I made this.Ridiculously Delicious Almond Butter-Crunch Popcorn (Which May Soon Have Peanuts)
25 cups (from about 1 cup kernels) popped popcorn
3 cups unsalted whole skin-on almonds, toasted (about 1 lb) or 4 cups raw whole macadamia nuts, toasted (about 1 lb)
1 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar (Cathy uses dark. I use whatever the hell is in my brown sugar canister)
5 tbsp light corn syrup
10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 tsp baking soda
Look at recipe. Think: Does this actually say 25 cups of popcorn? Is this supposed to be the size of an entire popcorn maker they have at the movie theater? Then think: Okay, it says about 1 cup kernels, so I can work with that. Go to cabinet, pull out microwave popcorn. Realize that the microwave popcorn doesn't tell you how many cups of kernels are in there. And that if you opened the bag to measure, it would defeat the whole bag-as-popper mechanism. Wonder: Is it okay to use microwave popcorn instead of oven kind? Think: Tough shit, it's going to be microwave. And furthermore, tough shit, it's going to be however much I have in this stupid microwave bag. The end.
Microwave popcorn to pop it. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Put popcorn in a large bowl. Add the nuts; set aside. Realize you were supposed to toast the nuts, per a footnote Cathy put in. Laboriously separate the almonds from the popcorn as best you can. Put the almonds on a rimmed baking sheet and place in a 350 oven for 8-10 minutes, shaking the pan halfway through to move the nuts around. Or, realize your oven is already busy doing the 200 degree preheat, so put them in the toaster oven, and forget to shake the pan half way through the move the nuts around. Actually, forget to turn the toaster oven on for that matter, so lose even more time as the nuts are sitting in the cold toaster oven. Yeah, come to think of it, you probably burned them a little.
Put sugar, corn syrup, butter and salt in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until mixture comes to a gentle simmer, about 4 minutes. Stop stirring; continue cooking until mixture lightens in color, 5 minutes more. Remove from heat; stir in baking soda.
Hey, this looks good. Too bad that at the point you got here with the sugar mixture, the almonds were still toasting (read: burning). So cover the pot and wait it out. When the almonds are done, discover the sugar mixture has now hardened. Doh. Heat it back up again to turn it back into a liquid, then pour over popcorn and nuts; toss to coat.
Transfer to rimmed baking sheets.* Bake, stirring every 20 minutes, until amost dry, about 1 hour. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Again with the wire racks? I just leave the sheet on the stove. This must be terrible for some reason. And besides, who needs it to cool? It was perfect immediately!
*Cathy says: Snitch some now -- it's really good even before you dry it out.
Heather says: It's just good, period.
Superb!
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