Chocolate mania is still going on in my house. I am cleaning up all the left over chocolate from last month’s marathon. Yesterday I made chocolate popcorn from Delicious Snacks cookbook. It is a perfect snack to munch on anytime of the day or when watching TV or reading a book.

Before we get to the recipe, a gentle reminder of the fund drive Siri is doing for the Vaidehi Ashram for Destitute Girls in Hyderabad. Please donate or the spread the word to help Siri in her noble cause. Fund Drive ends on Feb 25th.

Source: Delicious Snacks
Total Time: 20 – 25 minutes
Cooking Time: 5-10 minutes
Baking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ – 3 tbsp. Oil (recipe called for sunflower but I used olive oil)
• 1/3 Popcorn Kernels
• 1/3 Brown Sugar (I used light brown sugar)
• 2 tbsp. Corn Syrup (I used lite corn syrup)
• 1 tbsp. Milk
• 2 tbsp. Butter
• 1/3 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Preparation:

• Pre-heat the oven to 300 F. By mistake I pre-heated it to 350 F.
• In a heavy bottom pan, heat oil. Add corn kernels and cover it. Shake it vigorously for about 2 minutes until popcorn is popped. I did not have a heavy button pan. Heated the oil, after adding corn kernels, reduce the heat to medium high and popped the corn for about 1:40 minutes until the sound of the corn popping reduced. Follow the instructions on the popcorn kernels packet to pop the corn.
• Once the corn is popped, transfer it to a big bowl.
• In another pan, take sliced butter, sugar, corn syrup, milk and heat it on low heat until the butter is melted. Stir constantly until butter is melted.
• Bring the mixture to a boil without stirring.
• Once it comes to a boil, let it boil for another 2 minutes.
• Remove from heat, add chocolate chips and stir the mixture until chocolate is melted.
• Pour the chocolate mixture over the pan and mix well until popcorn is well coated with chocolate.
• Spread the chocolate coated popcorn on a cookie sheet and bake in a 300F oven for 15 minutes or until the popcorn is crisp. For some reason, I set the oven to 350 F and 12 ½ minutes into baking, I realized I set the temperature wrong, 350F instead of 300F. Luckily, popcorn was crispy enough and was not over baked.
• Cool the popcorn and serve,
• Store the leftover in an air tight container.

Recipes posted this month: in 2009, in 2010 and in 2011.
Event Entries: Sending these to Srivalli’s Chocolate Mela, Cooking with Seeds: Corn, an event started by Priya, and Bake Fest # 4, an event started by Vardhini.