Peanut Butter Cup Popcorn

Five Little Chefs – Peanut Butter Cup Popcorn

Another blog we visited was Our Best Bites where we found Peanut Butter Popcorn. We have movie night on Fridays so popcorn is a big hit at our house! We made this recipe in two half batches because we do not have a bowl big enough to stir 20 cups of popcorn without getting it all over the counter. Though the Little Chefs would have loved to eat the jumpers!

We were all so excited to begin, all the Little Chefs were in the kitchen which not only makes it fun but chaotic which also means we make mistakes. Little Chefs A and D measured out the nuts.

Then they moved onto the chips. We decided to make it a little more chocolatey and used peanut butter chips and milk chocolate chips (none of us have taken a liking to semisweet). The oil was then carefully measured and poured into the bowl. Little Chef A was ready to put it in the microwave when I thought I should check. I asked if they put the peanuts into the popcorn bowl or this black bowl. They said the black bowl. Oops! We made a mistake. We had to spoon out each of the nuts and transfer it to the popcorn bowl. This is why a seemingly simple and quick recipe does not turn out to be simple and quick with Little Chefs cooking!

Finally Little Chef A was ready a second time to put the bowl in the microwave to melt the chips. After making the “sauce” for the Orange Creamsicle Buddies she was very confident in her abilities.  She was still a little surprised when she took the bowl out for the second time and said, “It’s melting!” almost as if she did not believe it was really going to do what the recipe and I told her it would do.

The second time through the recipe (remember our bowl isn’t big enough to stir a whole batch) it was much quicker. Little Chef A knew what she was doing. She was moving around with confidence from one task to the next. She practiced stirring even faster to try to help melt the chips.
The melted chocolate/peanut butter mix was then poured on top of the popcorn and peanuts. It was a little difficult to mix it. At first it did not look like anything was happening, but I had to convince Little Chef A the more she mixes it the more the chocolate will coat the popcorn. She now understood why I suggested to half the recipe even when we used a bowl that could fit 20 cups of popcorn. She realized why the extra room in the bowl was necessary to keep the popcorn in the bowl during the stirring process.

Next it was time to melt the chocolate chips (we used milk chocolate) in the ziploc bag in the microwave. I  was afraid the bag was going to melt so I had her check on it more frequently. She had to squeeze the bag which she said, “It’s so gooey!” “I feel like I am touching gooey stuff. It is so wierd.” She was very excited to squeeze it all over the popcorn while using her artistic skills to make swirls and lines in every direction to make it look so gorgeous and yummy.

Place the peanuts popped popcorn in a very large bowl. In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the peanut butter chips and vegetable oil or shortening and heat for 2-2 1/2 minutes or until smooth, stirring every 30 seconds. Drizzle the melted peanut butter chips over the popcorn and peanuts and toss to combine.