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Dessert

Popcorn Balls

Popcorn balls are sweet, salty treats made by coating popped corn with a molasses and sugar mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Popcorn Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine molasses, brown sugar, vinegar, and butter in a large kettle and cook until well mixed.

Prepare the popcorn

  1. Pop enough corn to yield 4 quarts.

  2. Salt the popped corn.

  3. Sift through your fingers to remove hard kernels and excess salt.

Coat and shape

  1. Stir the popped corn into the kettle until fully coated with the candy mixture.

  2. Heap the mixture onto buttered plates.

  3. Cut into blocks or mold into balls.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the dark, rich flavour and the sticky base that binds the popcorn.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture harden into a chewy coating as it cools.
Vinegar
Adds a small amount of acidity that balances the sweetness of the molasses and sugar.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel in the coating.
Popped corn
Forms the body of the balls, held together by the cooked syrup.

The step that matters

Stir the popped corn into the kettle until fully coated. The syrup must be hot and well mixed but not scorched; if it cools too much it will not spread evenly, and if the corn is not fully coated the balls will fall apart when shaped.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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