Maple Rosemary Popcorn

Posted December 06, 2010

Find more about popcorn , CARAMEL , food gift , Holiday , snack , rosemary

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Oh, she's a wicked, wicked girl, that Birdy.

Although she did pick the rosemary for me, so I suppose she was entitled to the entire bucket of caramel corn.

Here are some of the ingredients. This is not a difficult thing to make.

Although I should mention that I don't like to use microwave popcorn as the base. And I'm not just saying that because I so badly want you to get a Whirly Pop.

Don't let the candy thermometer scare you. Boiling it for five minutes will work just fine.

Here it is before baking.

And after.

Bucket of awesome.

Ben is alternates between profound goofiness and breathtaking elegance. Maybe that's just being 11.

Birdy pretended to be restraining herself. Don't be fooled.

The season is turning, and I love it. Our shelling nuts are out in a bowl with the nutcrackers, beckoning to Birdy like a siren song of fillingness ("Ooof, I ate too many pecans," she says, surrounded by shells like a zoo animal.). The woodstove crackles and steams and blasts out its fragrant heat. The cardinals dart and blush at the feeder. And light is pouring in from the sky around the leafless branches, from our twinkling Christmas tree, from the hush of our menorah. Oh, and the music! We listened to the Pandora Swingin' Christmas station all weekend, and were in corny-favorites heaven. They must have played a hundred versions of "Baby It's Cold Outside," and the line "maybe just a cigarette more," sends the kids into fits of appalled hilarity.

Plus, there's the lovely cold, which only seems to exaggerate our extreme coziness. (New reality show? Extreme Coziness! How many throw blankets will it take to cover them all? How much decaffeinated Early Grey could they possibly drink?) "The stream at school was totally isolated!" Birdy announced on Friday, and we were briefly confused. "Like, they roped off to keep you from going near it?" I tried, and her brow furrowed. "What? No. They didn't care. It was just a little ice anyways." "Aha!" I said. "Icelated, like, covered in ice?" And she said, "Of course--what did you think I meant?"

In a related conversation, she mused aloud about how there should be a kind of rain stick--one of those instrument tubes with the musically clattering beans--only it should be a snow stick that makes the sound of falling snow. Zen, right? I might try marketing it. The Silent Snow Stick. They'd be easy enough to make. Maybe it wouldn't even have to exist; you could just sell people the concept.

And then there's this popcorn, which reminded Birdy about a project they'd done at school using oils from "Rosemary, peppermint, thyme, and... I want to say... Ontario?" Yes, that's right. Canadian provinces make the most fragrant essences. Our rosemary plant is still staggering along, despite our not bringing it into the warm inside, like it would prefer; it all but presses its piney face longingly against the glass. But I sent Birdy out to pick some, because in this month's Martha Stewart magazine she had a rosemary-scented caramel-corn recipe that looked like the love child of my rosemary pecans and my salted caramel popcorn. I swapped in maple syrup for the brown sugar and corn syrup, added pecans and cayenne (that bit of spicy warmth totally makes it, if you ask me), and chopped the rosemary to distribute it more evenly. And it is about as perfect a snack food as you could ask for: sweet, salty, herbal, spicy, and addictive. We ate all of it while we were trimming our tree. And I hope we got it out of our system, the gorging on the rosemary caramel popcorn, since I'm planning to make more of it for holiday giving, and I'll be so fat and frustrated if we eat it all by mistake. I'm either going to package it in the kind of silvery paint bucket I show here (with cellophane tied around it) or I'm going to package it in new 1-gallon paint lidded paint cans. You can get both at Home Depot, and I love the way they look. Plus, you can seal the lidded paint can, label it, and put it right in the mail, without a box. How cool is that?

Can I ask you one more thing? What would be most useful for you right now, recipe-wise? Another gift idea? (I was thinking of posting the pretzel bark we made last year, which was another euphoric salty-sweet experience.) A great holiday side dish? (I was thinking of the Christmas fennel-potato gratin I like to make.) A nourishing cold-weather meal? (I was thinking of posole, with pork, chiles, and hominy.) You'll let me know, right?

Maple Rosemary Popcorn
Makes 12 or so cups
Active time: 10 minutes; total time: 1 hour

Of course you could omit the rosemary and the cayenne and it would still be divine. But try it this way. The worst that happens is your kids don't like it. And there are worse things than that, if you know what I'm saying. Sadly, my kids loved it.

2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
1 cup pecan pieces, toasted at 350 for 7 minutes
1 stick butter
2/3 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Heat the oven to 250.

Pop the popcorn. As I like to mention at every possible moment, whether or not it's relevant, we are totally in love with our Whirley-Pop. We use it nearly every day. Seriously. You should end up with something like 10 cups of popcorn, but you don't need to measure it or anything. Combine the popcorn and pecan pieces in the world's most ginormous bowl, a very large roasting pan (as shown here), or your kitchen sink, that you've scrubbed and dried very well. As we are now the proud owners of an actual roasting pan (thanks again, Mom and Dad!), this is the first time I've not made it in the sink.

Now combine the butter and maple syrup in a medium-sized pot and bring it to a boil over medium heat. Boil it for 5 minutes, or until a candy thermometer shows something approaching 250. (I boiled mine for five minutes, at which point the thermometer was at 240. Fine.) Turn off the heat, and stir in the rosemary, cayenne, salt, and baking soda. It will get delightfully foamy and fluffy and creamy (from the baking soda), at which point you should pour it over the popcorn and pecans. Use a wooden spoon or two to toss it and stir it gently, trying to coat the popcorn as evenly as possible. Pour it onto a large, rimmed baking sheet (oil it or spray it with cooking spray) and bake for 45 minutes (stir it once, gently so it doesn't all flip onto the floor), until it is dry. But it's tricky to tell, because it will feel sticky and oily still while it's hot, so you need to pull a piece out and let it cool for a minute, and then see if it's dry to the touch. If it's still sticky, give it another few minutes.

Cool, then break into pieces and serve or package for giving away. Sigh.

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Maple Rosemary Popcorn

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MamaLBAB says:

January 04, 2011

I might possibly be able to eat the entire batch myself. It is amazing. First time I thought it was too spicy, so put less cayenne in next time and now it's not spicy enough. Everyone I have given it to has begged for the recipe and can't stop raving about it. Guaranteed, indeed! Thank you!

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ceg595 says:

December 10, 2010

I love your salted caramel popcorn recipe and made about 10 batches of it last year. First I made some for us and it was DELICIOUS! Then I made several batches to give to our friends; then I made several batches to give to our families; then I made a few more batches for our coworkers; and then I started receiving requests for refills. It was such a hit. I definitely look forward to trying this variation. My husband does a lot of homebrewing, and I borrowed one of his huge kettles for mixing the corn. (30 qts, I think) It worked great.

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maryncampbell says:

December 09, 2010

All of those ideas sound great! I am wondering if you have any recipes for food to feed a crowd? We entertain often around the holidays and are always searching for food that can be made in large volume that works well for an open house type party so people can nosh on something that feels hearty and filling.

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Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Maple Rosemary Popcorn

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