:::Peanut Butter Popcorn:::

Do you love yourself? Your family? Your friends?

Make this Peanut Butter Popcorn for them post haste. I found the recipe last night via the kitchn and made it tonight for, ahem, FHE...yeah, for FHE. That's why I needed to make an entire treat recipe just for myself...

Below is the original recipe, then the recipe as I made it tonight.

Peanut Butter Popcorn
makes about 8 cups
 
1/4 cup popcorn kernels
Vegetable oil
Fine salt
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter (should be free of added sugar)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Prepare a clean paper shopping bag or oversized mixing bowl. Heat a large heavy pan over medium heat and film the bottom with vegetable oil. Add the popcorn, shake to distribute, then put a lid on the pan. Leave a small crack for steam to escape. When the popcorn starts popping, shake vigorously to make sure the kernels pop evenly. When the popping slows, take the pan off the heat.

Pour the popcorn into the paper bag or bowl to cool, being careful to leave any unpopped kernels in the pan. Coated with peanut butter caramel, the unpopped kernels are a serious tooth hazard. Lightly salt the popcorn to taste.

Mix the honey and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for a couple minutes, then remove from the heat and add the peanut butter. Stir vigorously until all the peanut butter is melted, then mix in the vanilla.

Immediately pour the peanut butter caramel over the popcorn and stir with a long-handled wooden spoon until it's all coated. Once it's mixed you can put it in a serving bowl. Cover tightly after it's cooled.

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Rebekah's Peanut Butter Popcorn
makes about as much as it makes
 
1/2 cup popcorn kernels (because I'm a 'don't measure cut twice' type of person)
Vegetable oil
Fine salt
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup sugar (I didn't have enough white sugar, so I used some brown sugar as well)
1/2 cup peanut butter (Full of sugar, the way regular, sane people eat peanut butter. Also, I used crunchy)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* Combine the peanut butter and vanilla now to make your life easier later.*


Directions

Spray a large mixing bowl/receptacle with non-stick cooking spray. Do not skip this step. I used a nice-sized glass salad bowl from Ikea. The bowl doesn't have to be gigantic.

Use your hot air popper and pop the popcorn into the prepped mixing bowl/popcorn receptacle. Done.

Heat the honey and sugar on the stove over a medium flame until 'boiling'. Turn down the flame to low and let it simmer for a two minutes. Stir constantly, like for the entire time.

Remove caramel from heat, stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Use caution to avoid splashes! Boiling caramel be hot, yo.

Stir vigorously until the peanut butter is melted and completely incorporated into the caramel mixture.

Immediately pour over popcorn.

Mix the popcorn and peanut butter caramel mixture with gentle folding motions.

EAT EAT EAT.


Result: My version was just a tiny bit on the too sweet side, probably due to the brown sugar fill-in and the fact that I didn't really measure how much I was using. Ha! What did I say about cutting twice? Oh, and the fact that I used regular peanut butter...because I can pretend to like a lot of things but natural peanut butter is not one of them, so I don't buy it.

Also, even though I didn't go to the trouble of making the popcorn on the stove, adding salt to the popcorn or to the peanut butter caramel mixture would provide a nice foil to the sweetness. I'm still in love with the result though.

Enjoy!