Fruity Jello Popcorn

If you know my husband at all, you know that one of his favorite treats is candy-coated popcorn. He even asked for cinnamon popcorn as his "groom's cake" at our wedding. While I have had great success making both cinnamon and caramel popcorn, I had been on the lookout for an easy recipe to make the fruity flavors of popcorn that you can get at the store. 

I actually found this recipe one night several months ago on accident. It was one of those cases where you finally find something when you stop looking :-)  It was great timing since he was wanting me to make some for his graduation reception. 

It's your standard candied-popcorn recipe where you cook the sugar mixture on the stove for awhile, coat the popcorn, and then bake it for a few minutes to help the mixture harden. The only difference is that you use a package of jello to add the flavor. I have also heard that you can use dry Kool-aid packets, but you have to add more sugar due to the lack of sugar in the drink packet. 

We tried cherry, tropical fruit, and blue raspberry with great success with all of them. The tropical fruit one may have been our favorite. The website talks about how some of the flavors of jello have more powder in the box than others. I definitely noticed this with the cherry flavor, so I baked it just a couple minutes longer to make sure the topping wasn't still gummy. There were some darker patches noticeable on the blue raspberry flavor since the color was lighter, but it didn't affect the overall flavor at all. 

Enjoy and let me know if you find a favorite flavor! 

(Printable Recipe)

Fruity Jello Popcorn
From Our Best Bites

Ingredients:
8 c. popped popcorn (I use air-popped)
1/4 c. butter
3 Tbsp. light corn syrup (can also use honey)
1/2 c. sugar
1 (3.5oz) pkg. jello - any flavor

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line a jelly-roll pan with foil or parchment paper. If using foil, spray lightly with a non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. Place popcorn in an extra large mixing bowl. Set aside.

Place butter and syrup in a saucepan on medium heat. Stir until butter is melted. Add the sugar and jello and stir to combine. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat until it just simmers and simmer for 5 minutes. The mixture may be thick at first but will become more liquidy as it cooks. After 5 minutes, pour half the mixture over the popcorn. Mix with two large spoons and repeat until the popcorn is well coated. This will be easier if you can work quickly.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, stirring a couple times in the middle. If the mixture appears to be a little bit gummy, you may have to bake it a minute or two longer. Remove the pan from the oven and let the popcorn cool. When it is cool enough to handle, break the popcorn into pieces.

Game Day Popcorn Palooza

As I'm sure everyone is aware, this past weekend (or week since it started on Thursday?) was a merger between Labor Day Weekend and the start of college football! Because of the occasion, my husband and I were invited to a Husker game party/outdoor BBQ on Saturday. Our only requirement was to show up to the party, but I can't ever seem to do that without bringing some kind of food along too... So, my husband decided that we would make several different kinds of popcorn.

We ended up making cinnamon (Husker Red), caramel, and a recipe for "rocky road popcorn balls" that he found on allrecipes.com. It really doesn't surprise me that he picked flavored popcorn - this is the guy that had my aunt make him cinnamon popcorn as a grooms cake (works for me; I like it too!).

I think our little air-popper was about done by the time we were finished popping all the kernels!  Nevertheless, the popcorn went over really well, so we may have to make the Husker-Red popcorn our signature game day treat!  Enjoy!

Cinnamon Popcorn
1 pkg. red hots
1/2 c. white corn syrup
1 c. butter
6 qt. air-popped popcorn

Pop the popcorn. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Add the first 3 ingredients to a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Pour the red hot mixture over the popcorn and toss to coat. Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on waxed paper to cool.

Caramel Popcorn
1/2 c. butter
2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. corn syrup
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 qts. popped popcorn

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place popcorn in a large bowl. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar and corn syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in soda and vanilla. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn, stirring to coat. Place in 2 large shallow baking dishes and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, stirring at 15 mintues. Remove and let cool on waxed paper.

Rocky Road Popcorn Balls
3 c. miniature marshmallows
1/4 c. butter
8 c. popped popcorn
1/2 c. dry-roasted unsalted peanuts
1/2 c. miniature chocolate chips

Place the marshmallows and butter into a large pot over medium-low heat, and melt them together, stirring often. Cook until blended and smooth, about 5 mintues. Remove from heat. Stir in the popcorn and peanuts, and stir gently to thouroughly coat them with teh marshmallow mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips. With greased hands (or kitchen gloves), shape the mixture into 3-inch balls, and wrap each in plastic wrap.