
Last night we planned a fun-filled evening of NCAA basketball and Zero Dark Thirty. I entered a bracket at work and went 10 for 10 at the start of the first round. I was leading the bracket all up to the last 4 games of round 1 (winner got a $25 gift card to Starbucks). All I needed was for Notre Dame, Oklahoma or UCLA (hopefully UCLA because I had them going far because of Erin's new found affiliation) to win. All three lost in pathetic blowouts. March Madness, indeed. To cheer us up we decided to make a batch of Candy Bar Popcorn.

![DSC_0124](/photos/2013/03/DSC_0124-584x386.jpg)

We popped some popcorn and chopped up a few different kinds of mini candy bars (3 Musketeers, Snickers Peanut Butter Squares, and Milky Way Caramels— one of each to be exact). We filled a bowl up with the popcorn and dropped the candy bar bites on top with a big handful of marshmallows. We microwaved that for about a minute (20 second intervals) until melted and gooey. Finally, we drizzled from Fran's dark chocolate sauce on top to up the decadence.

It was enough to make up for the unfortunate basketball outcomes.


Candy Bar Popcorn

candy-bar-popcorn


Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm sure we'll be posting lots of pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner recipes over the next few days, but today we share cake batter popcorn inspired by this [recipe](http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2012/03/birthday-cake-batter-popcorn/) on Tasty Kitchen, made on a whim one Friday evening to accompany a movie watching.

![](/photos/2012/11/DSC_0730-584x374.jpg "DSC_0730")

Melt approximately 1/4 cup white chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every 20 seconds or so until smooth, add in 2 tablespoons of boxed cake mix and loosen the mixture up with a little bit of milk until it is drizzle-able. Drizzle your cake batter white chocolate over 2 cups of popped popcorn. All we had in the cabinet was kettle corn, and its sweet saltiness was a perfect match for the other flavors. Generously top with sprinkles. Allow the mixture to cool and harden (you can use the fridge to help you out if you are in a hurry).

Like you won't be eating enough dessert today :)


Cake Batter Popcorn

cake-batter-popcorn


What's better than a quiet evening, sitting on the couch watching a fun movie with your family and eating popcorn? All of that except make the popcorn caramel corn.

But instead of going through the process of making my own caramel syrup, I used the jar of fleur de sel caramel sauce from Trader Joe's we had sitting in the fridge, thus making shortcut caramel corn.

This stuff is super simple to make. First you need some freshly popped popcorn. We actually popped kernels in a brown paper bag in our microwave. We followed some instructions on the internet (1/2 cup of kernels), which turned out to be too much popcorn in the bag because when they popped, they began overflowing from our bag and made a hole in the bottom. Next time I think we'll only make 1/4 cup of kernels using this method.

![](/photos/2012/02/DSC_0379-584x480.jpg "DSC_0379")

To serve two people, pour two cups of popcorn on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. Spray with butter flavored cooking spray and sprinkle a little bit of sea salt on top. Drizzle three tablespoons of caramel sauce over the popcorn and take a handful of peanuts and toss on top.

![](/photos/2012/02/DSC_0391-584x386.jpg "DSC_0391")

Bake in the oven at 300° for twenty minutes then allow to cool for five minutes before serving. This snack was the perfect, not too indulgent blend, of sweet and salty and made our lazy movie watching evening that much more enjoyable.

![](/photos/2012/02/DSC_03921-584x460.jpg "DSC_0392")


#popcorn

Candy Bar Popcorn

Cake Batter Popcorn

Shortcut Caramel Corn