Sugared Popcorn
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 221°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Place the popcorn in a clean kettle.
In a saucepan, combine sugar and water and cook until it reaches a soft ball stage (about 221°F or 105°C).
Set the syrup near the popcorn.
If desired, add pink food coloring to the syrup for pink corn.
Coat and finish
Pour the syrup over the popcorn and stir well.
While stirring, have a helper sprinkle granulated sugar over the popcorn.
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
- Sugar
- Dissolves into water to make the syrup that coats each popped kernel and adds sweetness.
- Popcorn
- Provides the crisp base that the sugar syrup and granulated sugar coat.
The step that matters
Cooking the syrup to soft ball stage. Sugar syrup held near 221°F (105°C) has the concentration that sets into a coating when it cools. Too low and the coating stays sticky; too high and it turns hard or brittle.
“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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