Candied Popcorn

After missing last month with the Secret Recipe Club because of our three weeks of traveling, it feels great to be back and posting again .  If anyone is interested, cruise posts are here, here & here.  Travel posts: Ponta Delgada (Azores), Amsterdam, Malmö, Sweden, Copenhagen day 1, day 2 & day 3 and lastly London. We had a fabulous trip and I was honestly bummed to miss a month of the Secret Recipe Club but I just couldn’t squeeze it in before we traveled and the reveal date was on my birthday and I was busy with my daughter in Denmark touring Frederiksborg Palace, one of the most opulent castles I have ever visited.  Anyhow, back to reality and this post. 

This month I was assigned Carol’s No Reason Needed and as I hadn’t cooked in so many weeks I was anxious to get cooking again.  Carol’s blog is just filled with recipes…nothing with fish though as she doesn’t like fish, okay there was one recipe, but even though we love fish I could work around that one.  In the end it was Maisie who chose the recipe this month as she saw me scrolling through Carol’s blog and the Candy Popcorn caught her eye and she begged to make it.  In the end Maisie read the recipe and made most of it herself and I was only there to deal with the super-heated sugar mix and when the popcorn had to be baked as Maisie’s still too small to be taking things out of the wall oven.

Maisie mixing the sugar mixture ingredients.

I poured the super hot sugar mixture over the popcorn and Maisie mixed it all together.

She spread the coated popcorn on the pan and then we baked it.

Maisie absolutely adored making and eating the popcorn and she’s asked a couple of times to make it again so I think this is a winning recipe in her book.

Candied Popcorn

• 1/8 cup plus 2 tsp. margarine
• 1/8 cup honey 
• 1/4 cup coconut palm sugar 
• 3 TBS. plus 1/2 tsp. Jello (flavored gelatin mix) we used strawberry
• 1 full sized bag microwave popcorn, popped (approx. 4.5 cups)

Preheat oven to 250F.

Combine margarine & honey in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave until melted.
Add the sugar & Jello powder. Stir to mix. Put in microwave and cook until it comes to a rolling boil (doubles in size).
Put the popcorn in a large bowl and carefully pour the sugar mixture over the popcorn. Stir to coat.
Place the popcorn on a Silpat lined or greased baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
Cool & break apart.  Very important, store in an airtight container otherwise it will get sticky wet.

Enjoy!

My previous Secret Recipe Club Recipe Posts:

Fruit, Nut & Poppy Seed Chicken Salad 
Broiled Sushi 
Health(ier) Peanut Brittle 
Crunchy Fudgy Heart Bites 
Texas Chicken with Lime Butter 
Pork Belly Soup with Collard Greens 
Thin Mint Irish Coffee 
Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies 
Welsh Cakes 
Nutella Crêpes 
Cilantro Lime Chicken 
Holy Guacamole 
and
Home Style Chicken Curry

Strawberry Soup

Strawberries and Cream, those are this month’s Improv Cooking Challenge ingredients assigned by our hostess Kristen of Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker.  I went back and forth thinking about all the wonderful and delicious things I could make with the assigned ingredients but after enjoying delicious cold fruit soups every lunchtime during our recent 2 week transatlantic cruise I decided that I needed to make my own cold soup.  I did a bit of searching on the internet and the recipe that kept coming up as a standout winning recipe was the Strawberry Soup from the 1900 Park Fare restaurant in Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. 

I scaled back on the amounts in the recipe as I was going to be the only one eating the soup as it’s not Maisie “safe” and Eammon doesn’t care for cold or fruit soups, but had I put this in a glass and told him it was a smoothie he would have gobbled it down and loved it!  I was happy to have it all to myself as the soup was absolutely delicious and when you read the recipe, beyond simple to make.  I wish that Maisie could enjoy this soup as it would be so special to serve for a Princess lunch.  With strawberries in season, this is a perfect soup to make and enjoy.

My previous Improv Cooking Challenge entries:

April 2012  Peanut butter & Jelly:  Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars  
March 2012  Potato & Cheese:  Loaded Potato & Buffalo Chicken Casserole 
February 2012  Ginger & Carrots:  Shrimp & Avocado Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing 
January 2012 Lemon & Sour Cream:  Ponderosa Lemon & Sour Cream Tart 
December 2011 Eggnog & Cranberries:  Eggnog Popovers with Cranberry Butter 
November 2011 Pumpkin & Cream Cheese:  Praline Pumpkin Cheesecake 
October 2011 Caramel & Apples:  Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies 

Strawberry Soup (Adapted from here) 

• 1 lb.strawberries (frozen variety with no added sugar, thaw with juice)
• 6.4 oz. heavy cream
• 0.8 oz.sour cream
• 1.2 oz. vanilla yogurt
• fresh strawberries for garnish
• sour cream for garnish
• fresh mint for garnish

Using a blender mix together the strawberries, heavy cream, sour cream & yogurt until smooth.

Chill.

Shake well before serving. Add a dollop of sour cream, fresh strawberries and mint leaves as garnish.

Makes 3 servings.

Enjoy!

Pink Strawberry Cake Balls

I’ve gotten better at actually photographing the things I make but it takes a lot longer for me to actually write up my post and get it published, or what happened with this recipe, it just sort of got lost amongst the drafts.

It was back the beginning of September that I posted this picture on Moments with Maisie of Maisie helping to make a strawberry cake because it was just what we had done that day but I never posted what we did with cake…Until now.

Maisie and I made adorable little pink Strawberry Cake Balls.

There were mini chocolate bits inside and they were coated with white chocolate and pretty pink sugar.

Pink Strawberry Cake Balls

1 box strawberry cake mix, prepared according to package instructions
1 8 oz. brick cream cheese, room temperature
1 16-ounce can strawberry frosting 
1/2 bag mini chocolate chips 
white candy melts 
Crisco solid shortening, if needed
pink sugar crystals

Prepare the cake mix according to the package instructions.  Allow the cake to cool completely and then crumble into a large bowl.  To the cake crumbles stir in the cream cheese and strawberry frosting until fully mixed.  Mix in the mini chocolate chips.  Using a cookie scoop form and place each cake ball on a Silpat lined cookie pan.  Once all the cake balls have been formed place the tray in the freezer to allow the cake balls to harden.

Melt the candy melts in the microwave, stirring every minute so not to burn the candy.  Add Crisco if the candy needs to be thinned a little.  Dip the frozen cake balls in the melted candy, place back on the Silpat and immediately sprinkle with the sugar crystals.  Refrigerate to set the candy.

Enjoy!