Saturday, July 2, 2011

Mock Caramel Corn/Sticky Date Popcorn!

I've got so much flak over posting exclusively fattening, buttery, unhealthy recipes on the blog, that I've decided to do something about it. As much as I want to post about W's birthday cake (Devil's food cake, layered with strawberry filling and a rich chocolate ganache, frosted with strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream, and has a chocolate-y glaze on top), I've decided to go down the healthier route. For a change.

Caramel Popcorn is something I adore. I've used the L-word too many times to describe food, but I truly, really am head-over-heels in Love with Caramel Popcorn. I eat it by the tub. I make unholy amounts of it and eat handfuls of sugary, buttery caramel corn straight out of the pressure cooker. Still don't believe me? I buy the burnt, overpriced, undercaramelized popcorn that is sold at Sathyam/Escape and eat every last morsel and fight the urge to buy another tub.

However, it is an indulgence, even for me. Instead of quitting caramel corn cold turkey, I browsed for healthier alternatives. And quite accidentally, I landed up finding a fantastic recipe for sticky "caramel" corn.

It's vegan (except for the honey?), mostly healthy, and delicious. Nope, it isn't caramel corn, but it isn't your birthday or the day you found out that the guy you were crushing on has a girlfriend, is it? So if caramel corn is uncalled for, make this sticky date popcorn. You can have it on any given day and not feel so terribly guilty, it keeps you up at night.

Sticky Date Popcorn

Ingredients:

1/4 cup popping corn
8 Medjool dates
3 tbsp vegetable/canola oil
5 tbsp honey (I used Kashmiri Saffron honey)
1 tsp vanilla essence
a pinch of salt

Method:

Pop the corn via the method of choice.

I popped it in the pressure cooker with a pinch of salt and a couple of teaspoons of oil. I got around 8 cups of usable popcorn and that should be just about right.

Soak the dates with 2 tbsp of water for an hour or two.

Use very good quality dates, please!

Remove the pits and grind it to a fine paste in the food processor/mixie.


In a small bowl, heat the oil, honey and vanilla. Add in the dates and bring to a boil. Simmer it down for a minute more, and pour the sticky sauce over the popcorn. Mix well.


If you play around with the proportions, you can make this even healthier. Total post-gym snack food. Or something you pick away at, in front of the TV. Or eat an entire batch, in lieu of dinner.

Or make batches of caramel popcorn and kettle corn as well, and have a popcorn buffet party. Things to live for.

No comments:

Post a Comment