Culinary Adventures: Buttered Popcorn Cupcakes, a great recipe for our outdoor movie party.

 

We were planning a summer outdoor movie party in our backyard, and I wanted to come up with some appropriate snacks. Food Network Magazine had a pretty genius recipe for “Golden Butter Popcorn Cupcakes“ in their September 2013 issue, so I thought it would be perfect for the party.

The genius part (in my opinion), was that they simply took a golden butter cake mix, and subbed out the water required for canned corn juice. Easy-peasy and it creates a great buttered corn flavor in a cupcake. I know that sounds weird, but it was really good.

The frosting part of the recipe was where I deviated a bit. They called for frosting made from two cups of heavy whipping cream with 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar, beaten into whip cream. I wasn’t so into that, so I made up my own:

7 tbsp butter

2.5 to 3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup heavy cream

Dash of salt

I did follow Food Network’s directions for the popcorn with the frosting, however. I used Pop Secret Home Style popcorn, and mixed it in a bowl with about 4-6 ounces of melted Ghiradelli white chocolate chips.

I took a handful of the white chocolate popcorn and crushed it up a bit (make sure you don’t put any un-popped kernals in the frosting), then added it to the frosting mixture

I frosted the cupcakes and added the rest of the white chocolate popcorn to the top of each cupcake.

**Note: always make sure that cupcakes are cool before frosting

 

I’ve seen some “popcorn cupcakes” on Pinterest where a regular cake mix was used and the popcorn was mini marshmallows painted lightly with yellow food coloring around the edges. While those cupcakes look cute, these are the real deal and the sweet buttery popcorn flavor will trump any mini marshmallows. (Side note: I also think that painting food coloring on mini marshmallows sounds like a lot more work.)

 

So there you have it–super easy and tasty Buttered Popcorn Cupcakes, guaranteed to be a hit at your next movie party. Our party guests kept making a point to come up to me during the party and tell me how good they were. There weren’t any leftover.