Savory Popcorn for Mom

Mother’s Day is just days away and if you’re thinking about making her a treat, why not try something a little different like some savoury popcorn.

We’ve come up with a list of some recipes that can spice up the typical popcorn snack. You can make it for your mom as an appetizer snack, package some up as a gift, or serve it with an after dinner movie or some relaxing time with your mom.

I’m usually a plain butter and salt popcorn gal. Every so often I’ll make a batch of caramel popcorn (we blogged the recipe here a few years ago) as a treat. Today though we are focusing on the savoury type of popcorn with lots of flavour! Take a look at some of the recipes below and see if anything stands out and give it a go for your mom or just for fun.

All of these recipes are best on some freshly popped popcorn. The recipes will nicely coat about 12-16 cups of popped popcorn but you can cut down the recipes to however much you’d like to make.

Brown Butter Lemon – Cook 6 Tbsp. of butter in a pan until browned and then take the pan off the heat and add 1 ½ tsp. of lemon zest. Stir and pour over the popcorn. Toss with salt.

Garlic and Herb – Melt 4 Tbsp. of butter in a pan and add 4 cloves of grated garlic and a tsp. each of fresh finely cut rosemary, sage, thyme and Drizzle over the popcorn and toss with some salt and

cook for a minute.

Parmesan and Rosemary – Add ½ cup of grated Parmesan along with 3 Tbsp. of olive oil, 1 Tbsp. of fresh finely cut rosemary, and toss with salt.

Three Cheese – For this one you’re gonna want to make sure your popcorn is warm. Then toss in 2 cups of shredded cheddar, 1 cup of grated Parmesan, and a ½ cup of Pecorino. Spread it all on a baking sheet (lined is probably best) and bake it at 350 degrees until the cheddar melts. About 3 minutes. Keep an eye on it though!

Italian Cheese – Mix 6 Tbsp. grated Romano cheese, 2 ¼ tsp. of Italian seasoning, and ¾ tsp. of garlic salt.  

Sesame – Heat 6 Tbsp. of butter with 2/3 cup of sesame seeds and cook until the seeds are toasted (5 or so minutes). Stir in 1 Tbsp. of sugar and toss with some salt.

Sesame Ginger – Melt ¼ cup of butter and stir in ½ tsp. of sesame oil, a drip or two of soy sauce, and a pinch of ginger powder. Pour over the popcorn and toss well.

Bacon Chive – Cook up some chopped bacon bits (6 slices is fine but you can some extra because the more bacon the better!). Keep the drippings and drizzle 2 Tbsp. of that with the same amount of butter over the popcorn and then toss with the bacon, ½ cup chopped chives, and ½ tsp. of cayenne. Season with some salt but it might be salty enough with the bacon and drippings.

Sriracha Lime – Whisk 5 Tbsp. of melted butter with ¼ cup of  Sriracha , 1 ½ tsp. of lime zest, , and 1 Tbsp. of lime juice and drizzle over the popcorn. Toss with salt.  

Chipotle – Melt 4 Tbsp. of butter with 2 Tbsp. of Chipotle hot sauce, and 1 tbsp. of Chipotle chile powder. Drizzle over the popcorn and toss with salt and corn nuts.

Cajun – Melt 4 Tbsp. of butter with 1 Tbsp. of Cajun seasoning , 1 tsp. of lemon zest, ¼ tsp. of cayenne, and 2 chopped scallions. Drizzle over the popcorn and toss with salt.

Curry- Melt ¼ cup of butter add in 2 Tbsp. of curry powder and mix well. Add in a tsp. of salt and a Tbsp. of turbinado sugar pour over the popcorn and toss. You can add in some more sugar or salt while you toss.

Buffalo – Melt 6 Tbsp. of butter and mix in 1/3 cup of Buffalo sauce toss in your popcorn and mix well. Add in ½ cup of crumbled Blue cheese and some celery leaves. Toss with some salt.  

French Onion – Melt 6 Tbsp. of butter with a packet of French onion soup/dip mix and toss with warm popcorn. Sprinkle in a package of French fried onions.

Salt and Vinegar – Combine ¼ cup of malt vinegar with 2 tsp. of salt and pour into a clean spray bottle. Shake well to dissolve all of the salt and spray over the popcorn.

There you have it many ways that you can make your popcorn more interesting. You can even make small batches of a few and get your mom to do a taste test to see which she likes best. Pair you savoury popcorn with some nice wine or other cool beverage and enjoy. 

Dessert Muffins

Sadly our muffin theme is coming to an end, but we saved the best recipes for last. Our focus today is on dessert muffins. Dessert muffins might make you think of cupcakes, but they are not cupcakes. There’s no icing or sprinkles or fancy piping. These muffins are just a little sweeter and have richer ingredients than most muffins. They also aren’t probably something that you would have for breakfast every day; they may be more of a treat so that’s why we think of them as dessert muffins.

The first one is a recipe that I have tried many times before. It’s a very chocolatey and delicious muffin. They are quite sweet and rich so we have made them mini.

Chocolate Buttermilk Muffin

1/3 cup of vegetable oil

1 cup of buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. of vanilla

½ tsp. of salt

1 tsp. of baking soda

2 tsp. of baking powder

½ cup of sugar

¼ cup of brown sugar

½ cup of cocoa powder

2 cups of flour

1 cup of chocolate chips

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl and then whisk all of the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Add the dry to the wet and stir well making sure to incorporate all of the ingredients.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Fill the muffin pans ¾ full and bake in a 350 degree oven for 18-20 minutes.

Allow them to cool slightly. Some people like to let them cool lots, but I like to eat them with the chocolate all melty.

Another dessert muffin recipe that you can try is this Chai-Spiced Cheesecake Muffins. Nicole’s tried it once and says they are quite yummy. She made a few changes to the recipe when she made them; I’ve made some notes about that in the recipe below.

Chai-Spiced Cheesecake Muffin

For the muffin you will need...

1 ¾ cups of flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. of ground ginger

½ tsp. of ground cardamom

½ tsp. of ground nutmeg

1 tsp. of baking soda

½ tsp. of salt

2 cups of applesauce (Nicole used 1 cup applesauce and 1 cup pumpkin)

1 ¼ cups of brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. of vanilla

½ cup of vegetable oil

For the filling you will need...

8 oz. brick of cream cheese

¼ cup of granulated sugar

1 tsp. of vanilla

Non-stick cooking spray for greasing

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

First of all you’re going to make the batter.

Whisk the flour, spices, and salt with a fork in one bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the applesauce, pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and oil.

Mix it all up with a fork and then add the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ones and stir with a fork until the batter is thick and smooth.

Now to make the filling.

In a bowl, use a fork to mix the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Mix until fluffy and smooth.

Grease your muffin tin with non-stick spray.

Scoop about ¼ cup of the batter into each of the muffin cups. Add a teaspoon of the cream cheese filling to the centre of each muffin and use a toothpick to swirl the filling into the batter.

Bake for 18 minutes.

Cool for about 5 minutes and serve warm.

Christmas Tradition #8 - Gingerbread Cookies

It’s the last post before Christmas. Hard to believe it’s Christmas already this Monday. I am doing my usual holiday baking, making lots of cookies and cakes.

One tradition that we haven’t talked about yet is gingerbread. Whenever you think about gingerbread, you think about Christmastime. I used to make and decorate houses when I was little and always get a decorated gingerbread man with Smartie buttons and icing. I have to admit that I would usually bite off the icing bits and Smartie buttons and leave the rest for my mom, but they are a yummy treat for this time of year.

Last Christmas I made my very first batch of gingerbread men on my own. I found a really easy recipe that you can make ahead of time and freeze the dough for whenever you are ready to make some.

Take a look at the recipe below. You can bake them right away or like I said, you can make the dough and then bake them when you are ready which is what I did this time around.

Gingerbread Cookies

 3 cups of flour

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. cinnamon

1 tbsp. ground ginger

½ tsp. salt

12 tbsp. butter, softened

¾ cup molasses

2 tbsp. milk

Mix the dry ingredients together in the mixer bowl and then put it on “stir” to mix them all up.

  

Add the butter until it’s like sand.

With the mixer going, add the molasses and the milk. When the dough comes together, then it’s ready.

Pat into two separate balls and wrap in plastic wrap. You can let them sit in the fridge for about an hour or so and then roll them out and cut shapes or you can label then and place them in the freezer until you are ready to use them. If you plan to use them in the next day or so then you can leave them wrapped tightly in the fridge. 

If you are making them right away and have all your shapes cut out, then you can place them on a cookie sheet with parchment paper and bake for 8-11 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Let the cookies cool on wire racks.

You can decorate your cookies once they have cooled with candies and chocolate treats. Take a look at this post that we did for sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day and try using this same icing on your gingerbread cookies. http://paperwhitecreations.blogspot.ca/2014/02/valentine-baking.html

 

Enjoy your cookies and Merry Christmas!

Ginger Cookies and Warm Milk

I’m really excited for this post. I have been thinking about it all week. We are making gooey chewy molasses ginger cookies today and some warm milk! It’s a different take on the whole milk and cookies thing.

I love soft molasses ginger cookies. I made them in home economics class way back in the day but have never made them since. I remember them being so good and of course I lost the recipe after high school when I threw away all my old homework etc. I never really found a recipe that I liked, but I finally came across one that caught my eye and I can wait no longer to try it. This is going to be exciting. And to add to it, we are making a warm milk recipe that I tried last winter when I wanted something warm to help me sleep before bed.

Sit back and be prepared to start craving some ginger molasses cookies and warm milk!

Gooey Chewy Molasses Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

½ cup molasses

2 eggs

4 cups of all purpose flour

4 tsp. baking soda

3 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time at low speed and then add in the molasses. Beat at medium-low speed until all is combined. Gradually add the dry ingredients. Mix until it is all combined.

Once the dough is made, wrap it up in plastic wrap and chill for 30-60 minutes.

When the dough is completely chilled, roll into 1 inch balls. Fill a small bowl with sugar and then roll each ball in the sugar until it is coated. Place the balls on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.

 You want the finished cookies be slightly cracked on top. Let them cool on a wire rack before serving.

Warm Milk Recipe

Ingredients:

(enough for one person )

1 cup milk (add additional cups for more people)

1 tsp. honey

2 drops of vanilla extract (you can add more after you’ve tasted it)

1 pinch of cinnamon (again you can sprinkle on a bit more if you want more flavour)

Directions:

Pour the milk into a measuring cup or microwave safe mug and cook until boiling and foaming; about 2 ½ - 3 minutes. Once it’s warm enough stir in the vanilla and honey and sprinkle with the cinnamon.