Cocoa Popcorn for Sonny D

Chocolatey popcorn.

One day Sonny D and I were out downtown and he was interested in getting popcorn at one of the popcorn vendors on State Street (pedestrian mall area here in Madison). I was willing to buy some popcorn (Mama loves popcorn a lot!) but I also offered him the option to go home and make it ourselves. He said he wanted chocolate popcorn, which I told him we couldn't buy at the store, but we could make at home.  Chocolate won his vote, so we popped up this version. 

Inspiration

Martha Stewart cocoa popcorn

To make this dairy-free, pop your popcorn in coconut oil on the stove or use a non-dairy spray or spread instead of butter.  

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons sugar 
• 2 tsp cocoa powder

Directions

Pop the popcorn in your favorite manner and put it into a large, wide container such as a cake carrier.  I use a hot-air popper but someday I'll pull out my stovetop popper since that is a wonderful way to have popcorn.

Cocoa powder plus sugar. 

While the popcorn is popping, melt the butter to drizzle on top of your popcorn.  Also mix together the sugar and cocoa powder. 

Coated popcorn. 

When your popcorn is done, drizzle on the butter while shaking the popcorn.  Then gently shake-tap approximately one-fourth of the sugar-cocoa powder mixture over your buttered popcorn a few times, shake it up, add some more of the mixture, and keep repeating until it's generally covered. 

Verdict

This made Sonny D a happy little boy!

This has a slightly bitter edge to it from the raw cocoa powder, so I would consider it something adults would generally appreciate more, but Sonny D seems to really like it.  I've made it two times for him in the last couple of weeks. I like it just as it's written, but have thought that possibly using powdered sugar might disburse across the popped kernels better, similar popcorn salt's super-fine texture so it can get into every nook and cranny.  Maybe we'll try that next time. 

I'm more a fan of savory popcorn (I like brewer's yeast or nutritional yeast) but this is fun for some variation.