Image by Kozumel

It’s so simple, I can’t believe I don’t do it more often. I’m sure I say this about a lot of things, especially when it comes to cooking. But it really is true about making popcorn.

This past weekend I was at the grocery store, about to buy some pre-made popcorn, when I remembered that I had some popcorn kernels waiting for me at home. I had bought them a while back with the intention of making homemade popcorn with the kids. That never happened. But on Saturday, I had a vision of having a movie night with my kids, and it included popcorn, so I decided that this would be the night that we would make our own.

My memories of making popcorn as a kid include shaking the Jiffy Pop popping pan non-stop until all the corn was popped and then very carefully opening the foil in such a way that I would not get totally burned by the steam! I used to do this with my dad on our at-home movie nights in the 70’s. Then microwave popcorn came along and pretty much replaced Jiffy Pop in my world. I’m quite sure I ate way too much of that stuff as a teenager.

The other night we made our popcorn old-school style – with a big pot on the top of the stove, canola oil and some popcorn kernels. I used three tablespoons of oil to 1/2 cup of kernels. This recipe made about three cereal-sized bowls of popcorn (I would definitely double the recipe next time for a family of four).

My three-year-old son was napping but my six-year-old daughter, Lucie, was pretty excited about making the popcorn. She had never made popcorn this way before and really had no idea what she was in for. I myself have always found the anticipation of waiting for those first kernels to pop pretty exciting (maybe that was an early sign of my passion for food!). We set up a little station at the stove with Lucie standing safely nearby on a step stool (The Learning Tower would be perfect for this). I used a 10-quart stockpot with a clear glass cover so that we could see the corn once it started popping. And sure enough, after a few minutes, the newly popped kernels started ricocheting off the sides and top of the pan and Lucie was excited as I remember being as a kid.

After most of the kernels had popped, I let Lucie choose the toppings. We separated the popcorn into three small bowls. Lucie chose salt and pepper for one bowl, fennel seed and salt (her idea) for another bowl, and cinnamon for the third bowl. After tasting the bowl with the fennel seed, we decided that we definitely should have ground them up with a mortar and pestle first, but overall it was really tasty. After I tasted the cinnamon popcorn I decided it needed a little sugar – and sure enough, that one ended up being the favorite!

Homemade popcorn is sure to become a permanent fixture at our movie nights in Brooklyn.

Feel free to leave me a comment about your favorite popcorn toppings. I would love to get some new ideas for next time.

Tags: cooking with kids, popcorn