The Hunt for Vanilla Popcorn

OK, I may not be the world's best cupcake decorator (as seen here), but I can cook. This particular blog post comes after the obsessive search through all my recipe books and magazines for the recipe for Vanilla Popcorn. I had made it last fall as a snack for my monthly cooking group meeting and they had recently asked to have it made again. I shouldn't've promised til I knew where that dang recipe had gone off to. I spent literally 4 days and many hours on a hunt that proved fruitless.

So I set off to do the next best thing and make my own recipe. I based it off of the three cookbooks in the background, using a little of each, and adapting it for the pudding I knew was in the original recipe.

Vanilla Popcorn

Ingredients- 2 sticks (1 cup or 1/2 lb.) of butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup sugar
1 small box of french vanilla pudding mix-instant
1 bag of hulless corn puffs
1 tsp. baking soda
No miniature magenta pony toys that somehow made it into the photo.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Combine butter, corn syrup, pudding mix, and sugar in a pot and boil for 2 minutes. Take off heat and add baking soda, mix quickly til combined, then pour over the corn puffs (in a large bowl). Stir thoroughly.


Divide mixture between two WELL GREASED cookies sheets. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring after 15 minute intervals. Remove from oven (they will still be sticky). Let cool, the coating will crisp up and taste ever so good! Store in an airtight container if all popcorn is not immediately consumed.

Now then, if you ask nice, I might give you my spaghetti sauce recipe. Step aside Mario Batali!