Nana's Molasses Popcorn Balls

In my family Nana's molasses popcorn balls are a coveted item. If you don't intend on sending them to family you had better not tell them you made popcorn balls. If you like molasses be warned - you may become addicted. You'll find yourself walking to the freezer without realizing what you're doing and grabbing popcorn balls that you were supposed to save for Christmas.

On the other hand, if you are not a fan of molasses I would strongly recommend against making these unless they are to give to someone who does like it.

Also, I would not recommend this recipe for people who are afraid to get their hands dirty (literally). When you're forming the popcorn balls with you're hands you'll need to coat them with butter so that the popcorn doesn't stick.

When you're reading this recipe you might think that the hardest thing is boiling the molasses - WRONG! The hardest part of this recipe is finding a bowl big enough to hold all of the popcorn. For this reason I would recommend halving this recipe (at least) until you are sure your largest bowl is big enough. In this instructable you'll see I didn't have a big enough bowl and had to split the popcorn into two bowls. This is not ideal because the recipe has the PERFECT amount of molasses syrup to coat the popcorn pretty evenly. If you use two bowls you increase the surface area that the molasses syrup will stick to (instead of sticking to the popcorn).

Step 1 Ingredients

Remember, this is for a pretty large batch. I would recommend halving this recipe.

*12 1/2  qts of popped popcorn (for this I used ~1 cup of popcorn kernels
vegetable oil
3 c. light molasses
2 c. white karo syrup (I think this is just corn syrup)
1 1/2  c. white table sugar
4 tbsp. butter + 1/4 c. butter at room temperature

Special Equipment:

Candy thermometer
LARGE bowl (heat proof)
medium bowl (heat proof)
Large pot

* 1 quart = 4 cups

Comments

[Penolopy Bulnick]

Mmm, sounds good!