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Dessert

Pop Corn Balls

A sweet treat made by coating popped corn with a molasses and sugar syrup and forming into balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 349 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pop Corn Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Salt the popped corn.

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine molasses, brown sugar, vinegar, and butter.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add baking soda 5 minutes before done.

Shape the balls

  1. Pour the syrup over the popped corn and mix well.

  2. Flour your hands and shape the mixture 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. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Popped corn
Forms the bulk that the syrup coats and holds together into balls.
New orleans molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark flavor, and moisture that keeps the syrup sticky.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup set chewy as it cools.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and reacts with the baking soda.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and helps the syrup coat the corn.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to foam the syrup, lightening its texture.

The step that matters

Add baking soda 5 minutes before done. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the vinegar and foams the hot syrup, which lightens the texture. Adding it at the right point, then mixing quickly, keeps the foam trapped so the balls are light rather than dense or flat.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, molasses, sugar, vinegar, butter):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, molasses, sugar, vinegar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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