It’s easy to create your own gourmet popcorn!

Of all the food trends I came across the last number of years, gourmet popcorn was one of the few things I actually liked.

Don’t get me wrong, I like popcorn and once I start, I have to keep going until the box/bag is empty but I wouldn’t pay €5 for a bag of 80g.

I prefer the salty version but wouldn’t discriminate against the sugary version either.

When it comes to gourmet styles, I have to admit that I don’t like most of them – I just like the idea of it (you can call me weird).

And as always, when I am not happy with something in shops, I tend to create my own version.

Many moons ago, my mum gifted me a popcorn maker (most of my older gadgets are from my mum to be honest) – so after dusting it off, I made a good amount of normal popcorn to play around with.

The beauty of a popcorn maker is that you don’t need oil or butter which makes it less calorific and you don’t risk ruining a good pot.

When thinking of flavouring, it’s really important to consider how to adhere it to the popcorn – which can be either butter or melted chocolate.

I tried two versions – one savoury and one sweet – and I found both were rather tasty, depending on your very own preference.

Firstly, for the savoury version, I melted butter in a pan and infused it with some sliced garlic and chopped rosemary over a low heat.

I wanted the aromatics but not the sharpness and didn’t want the butter to brown or get any burned bits in the butter which would turn the popcorn ugly.

When the butter cooled down slightly, I added some salt and poured it over the prepared popcorn and tossed it to coat as much of the popcorn as possible.

While cooling down, the popcorn really needs to be mixed a lot to avoid large lumps sticking together.

The result was flavoursome and tasty – it might not be to everyone’s taste but I liked it.

For the sweet version, I crushed some Oreos and mixed it with the prepared popcorn.

Then I melted white chocolate which I poured over the popcorn mix and stirred to coat the popcorn.

While it was cooling down, the mix also needed to be mixed regularly to avoid large lumps of sticking together. When the mix was cool,

I added white and milk chocolate chips to the mix (I didn’t want the extra chocolate to melt) and gave it a final mix.

The result was delicious although next time I would add some colour to the mix with Smarties or M&Ms as the mix looked a bit boring with just black and white ingredients.

I still had some popcorn cones (can’t remember where I got them from) but it made a nice snack box while watching a movie or match.

Other ideas for flavoured popcorn could be peanut butter – for that I would melt white chocolate and peanut butter together to pour over the prepared popcorn and tossing some chopped peanuts in.

For another savoury version, simply infuse butter with crushed chillies for a spicy version – the possibilities are endless.

Happy snacking everybody!