Week 44: Boo Hoo and Spiced Maple Popcorn Balls
This Halloween left me as gloomy as a ghost with no house to haunt.
Even with adorable kids parading around in costumes, treats to enjoy, and parties to attend, this All Hallows Eve I was visited by the ghosts from my past and spooked by the skeletons in my closet.
I found myself craving the excitement of my kids’ youth, when we created costumes, hosted Halloween parties, and made special Halloween meals. For the past 10 years, my sister’s kids have enjoyed Halloween at my house, which is a complete blast and I love the tradition.
But, this year I missed my kids and declined all social events. Sometimes empty nesting is hard and heart-breaking!
As for the skeletons in my closet, I tried to conjure memories of my own childhood Halloween festivities, but with limited results. The memories come to me more like glimpses or sensory memories—like the sound of rustling leaves and the sight of dim street lighting, as we went door to door. Or, the distinct aroma of a pillowcase filled with candy, which in those days were full-size candy bars or packages.
Oddly, for someone who loves making costumes, I only recall two of my childhood Halloween costumes—a creepy plastic mask (from the 60s) of Tweety’s face (from Sylvester and Tweety), and a homemade Martian costume that I created when I was 12. The latter included my brilliant idea to combine Vaseline with green Cray-Pas crayons to color my face, which resulted in a fabulous looking costume, but also a horrible acne break out on my face :-/
I have no photos from my childhood to assist my lacking memories. As I mentioned in previous posts, not only was my mom overwhelmed by being a single mother of 5 daughters, therefore she didn’t take photos of me, but all of her photo albums were lost sometime in the 80s.
Knowing what I know now about the brain and its reaction to the trauma, I suspect that my lack of memories is the coping mechanism my brain selected to deal with divorce, difficult transitions, my mother’s pain, and the death of a sister. It would be pretty cool if I could dig a little deeper and remember—as I’m writing this, I’m realizing that I need to reach out to my older sisters in an email to see what they remember. They’ve always been a great touchstone for my childhood memories…at least the ones they haven’t blocked out, as well.
Original Recipe
The Process
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find a healthy alternative to the sweet, sugar-laden, and sticky popcorn balls from my youth, so I decided to at least make them a “clean food“ treat I could enjoy on Halloween, instead of candy. When I mentioned this recipe conversion to my nephews, one of them immediately suggested that I use honey. But, I don’t really like the taste of honey in large quantities, and I had every intention of consuming this treat myself. So, I was still left looking for an alternative to sugar that was sticky enough to hold the popcorn together into a nice delicious little ball.
A quick search for “healthy popcorn ball“ on Google resulted in a plethora of creative and tasty sounding recipes, so I picked my favorites—one using maple syrup and brown rice syrup and the other using maple syrup.
Both recipes gave directions for making stove top popcorn, but I chose to go with air pop because it’s easier, faster, and requires less dishes. For my own ingredient inspiration, I added an autumnal spice blend of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, with the addition of toasted pumpkins seeds and dried cranberries.
The Results
I had a complete blast making the first batch of popcorn balls with my daughter-in-law Jenny, who shares my raunchy and sophomoric sense of humor. We were laughing so hard as we read the directions for achieving a hard-ball versus a soft-ball temperature in candy making that by the time we were “handling the balls” we were laughing hysterically. Assuming that greased hands would aide the ball handling we lubed up with coconut oil (Jenny is vegan), but (as you can tell in picture) the popcorn wouldn’t form into a nice sticky-firm popcorn ball.
We realized that we had to wash our hands in between handling each ball, and at that point Jenny and I were in the kitchen laughing hysterically, while my son Alex was in the living room rolling his eyes in mortification.
Eventually, once the caramel had cooled a little we got the popcorn balls to hold together without hand-washing. They tasted sweet and spicy, but the result was a little chewier than I wanted. I made a second attempt on my own using just maple syrup and following mom’s recipe more accurately, with really positive results.
I still used air-popped popcorn and added autumnal spices, and, for the most part, I followed the recipe exactly and it worked! I made about one dozen popcorn balls and included cranberry and pumpkin seeds for a little nutritional boost and they were salty, crunchy, and a little tart. In fact, they curbed my sweet tooth enough to keep me out of the Snickers, Milky Way Bars, M&M’s and Swedish Fish…yay!
Pumpkin Maple Popcorn Balls (Version 1)
These are the first giggle-infused chewy gooey batch
Ingredients:
6 cups popped organic popcorn
2 T coconut oil
½ cup brown rice syrup
½ cup maple syrup
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger (powder)
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
(optional)
1/2 cup dried cranberries (optional)
Instructions:
Boil the butter, salt, syrups and spices for 7 minutes.
Top popcorn with pumpkin seeds and cranberries.
Carefully pour over the popcorn, nut, and fruit mixture.
Stir with a greased wooden or silicon spoon so that all of the popcorn is coated.
Grease your hands and form balls.
Store in a tightly sealed container or wrap individually in wax paper.
Spice Maple Popcorn Balls
These popcorn balls, which were the preferred treat of tasters young and old, are a little crunchier and have a more distinct maple flavor.
Ingredients
6 Cups popped popcorn
1 1/4 cup maple syrup, divided
1 1/2 tsps salted butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Instructions:
Combine popcorn, cranberries and pumpkin seeds in a large bowl.
Grease a heatproof or wooden spoon ahead of time, because things move fast once the maple candy is ready.
Line a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pour 3/4 cup of the maple syrup and butter into a small saucepan with spices.
Cook the syrup on medium high, stirring frequently until it reaches 250 degrees, the firm ball stage (when a little bit of syrup is dropped into cold water, it will form a firm ball that will flatten when you squeeze it) – about 8 to 10 minutes.
Drizzle the syrup over the popcorn, pumpkin seeds, and cranberries; toss with the greased spatula or wooden spoon.
Keep tossing the popcorn with the maple syrup until the popcorn is evenly coated. Spread the popcorn on the prepared baking sheet, and pick out uncooked kernels. Place in the oven for 15 minutes.
About 10 minutes into the baking time, pour the remaining 1/2 cup of maple syrup in the same saucepan and heat until it reaches 250 degrees Fahrenheit. The maple syrup should reach the hard ball stage in about 10 minutes, but the popcorn can stay in the oven a bit longer, if needed, and you can turn the oven off.
Pour the baked popcorn back into the bowl and pour the maple over the mixture and quickly toss. Form balls with greased hands place on the parchment covered cookie sheet to cool.
Wrap with waxed paper or plastic wrap, or you can store in a tightly sealed container.
Note: You can also try adding chopped walnut, almonds, or shaved toasted coconut. Maybe even dried mango…yummy!
Week 45 Recipe Pick
Mmmmmm, I love squash!
