I even bought a bag of popcorn kernels a few months back, thinking that I should always be "ready" in case the urge hits to whip up those popcorn macarons and I wouldn't want to be hindered by the lack of popcorn in the house. In fact, I've also never actually popped my own popcorn prior, but I've always read online that it's really easy to pop popcorn at home.
I had leftover egg whites again from another baking session and I decided that it was high time I dethroned the tempting macaron flavour from its top spot of my to-make list. And finally took out the bag of poorly neglected popcorn kernels from its dusty spot in the pantry cupboard.
It's not a joke that it's really a no-brainer to pop popcorn. It seriously took me all of within 5 minutes to get a pot full of freshly popped popcorn that I was quite surprised myself. You can bet I'm gonna be popping my own popcorn from now onwards (when the once in a long while craving hits that is...).
I seasoned the popcorn with melted butter and salt, and when cooled, crushed about a cup of it in the food processor to get popcorn bits. I think if I'm to make this again, I might go the caramel popcorn way. While the salted popcorn contributed to a salty factor in the overall macarons, it got stale pretty fast too. Perhaps crunchy caramel popcorn might possibly have a longer crunch shelf life?
The macarons tasted sweet and salty, just how I like my popcorn to be - mixed. The sweetness was from the shells and salted caramel, and the salty factor, surprisingly was more from the buttery salted popcorn bits sprinkled atop the macaron shells than the salted caramel. Finally. I can say adiós to this long anticipated flavour. The next in line to the throne? Hmmm it would be a fair fight between bacon with maple buttercream and strawberries and cream. ;)
