Name: Pop Corn Balls
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon granulated sugar; 1 tablespoon water; 1 teaspoon gum water; popcorn

Pop Corn Balls

Ingredients

1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon gum water
popcorn

Directions

Make the syrup

Boil sugar and water in a saucepan to make a thin syrup.
Add gum water and boil for 1 more minute.

Shape the balls

Pour the syrup over a dish of popcorn and stir well.
Shape the mixture into balls with your hands.
If desired, roll the balls in a little cochineal for a pink color.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar: Dissolves into the water to form the syrup that binds the popcorn together.
Gum water: Thickens the syrup so it clings to the popcorn and holds the shaped balls together.

“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.