Gourmet Chocolate Popcorn

Chocolate popcorns are much like kettle corn, way too expensive to buy and super yummy and easy to make :)

On New Year's Eve we made white chocolate popcorn w/toffee bits, chocolate marshmallow popcorn and three batches of kettle corn... the plan was two batches, but somehow the kettle corn in the bowl kept shrinking and shrinking as the afternoon went on. It was quite the mystery... Hmmmmm... wonder if the snickering kids know anything.

We all made the popcorn together and it was a lot of fun.

This would make a perfect Valentine's Day family home evening activity. And the popcorn especially looks adorable in cellophane bags with the vintage popcorn Valentine above printed out and attached. What a great Valentine's Day treat to give to neighbors, teachers or friends.

Jake enjoyed making popcorn, but is still getting used to the camera being forever present.

Nina is showing Jake how to stir the food and look gorgeous for the camera. I think that is an even more important lesson in our house than the actual popcorn making lesson.

How can I resist a photo op with my sweetie?

Anyways... on to the actual popcorn making technique. I know you can start chocolate popcorn with microwave popcorn, but it's much cheaper and more fun to use your air popper. I think it's about time to replace mine. It's missing the lid so you have to hold a spatula over the top.

Melt your chocolate or white chocolate in the microwave or in a double-boiler. I always use the microwave method, but Jake thought it would be cool to do it over the stove so I dusted off the double-boiler. You can add a small amount of oil to the chocolate if you'd like to make it a little smoother and more spreadable.

Spread your popcorn on to wax paper and drizzle with chocolate. We added mini marshmallows into the popcorn that was drizzled with chocolate and sprinkled toffee bits onto the white chocolate popcorn while it was still wet. Both came out delicious.

You can either just drizzle and let set on the wax paper, which gives you a more dramatic look and bigger chunks of chocolate (like the picture to the left) or you can use a spatula to mix it all together and then place it directly in the bowl. I've done both methods, depending on my mood. The drizzle method looks fancier, but the mixing method is faster.

There are so many combination you can do, peanut butter chips, mini m&ms, chocolate w/white chocolate drizzles... let your imagination and your taste buds run wild!!!