Buffalo Wing Popcorn

So today we're gonna make some buffalo popcorn and I have to warn you that this stuff is very addictive .

This sweet and salty spicy popcorn hits all the taste buds and is sure to be a really good hit for guests .

It's a really good party food .

You could probably also even make the stuff as a gift for the holidays and it's kind of old fashioned to make popcorn for your family and friends .

But , you know , in this case , it might be a really good option and I honestly don't know why they don't make the stuff commercially because it's delicious .

But with all that being said , um let's just jump into cooking today .

So the first thing that we're gonna need to do is pop some popcorn and there are actually many ways to do this .

Um But I'm gonna show you the way that I do it .

And in my experience , the trick to making good popcorn is being confident and not showing any fear to the kernels because if you do it can come out badly .

So we're gonna start by making popcorn , we're gonna heat it with pan over medium heat , adding enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan .

Typically , it's about one third , 1/4 of a cup of oil for meat .

You want to use a neutral oil like vegetable oil is perfect .

Something that has a higher flash point is even better .

Something like coconut oil .

And we're just gonna go ahead and pour this in and let this heat up in the pan .

After about 90 seconds , the pan should be heated And at which point , we can add a test kernel of popcorn in .

Go ahead and place the lid back on .

We should see that it should slightly bubble .

You can see these little bubbles around the kernel .

Um If not , then the oil is not hot enough yet .

And just , you can either wait and take that out or add another test kernel in a few minutes .

But once we notice that lone kernel has exploded , we're in business .

So you can go ahead and pour the rest of your popcorn in at this point .

And I'm adding about one half of a cup of uh kernels , um , which you can see immediately start to bubble and fry in the oil .

Go ahead and place the lid on and watch it go to prevent the popcorn from burning .

We're gonna very lightly shake this .

Um The reason we have to do this slightly is that as the popcorn cooks , it releases a lot of moisture and since the lid is on and that's cool .

Water will condense on the of the lid .

And if you shake it too hard water will fall back into the oil , uh , which will reduce the temperature , which is not what we want .

And if popcorns actually popped , it will end up making the popcorn kind of wet and soggy .

Also something we don't want .

So very lightly shake this and just kind of let this thing go .

You want to keep an eye and an ear out to kind of hear and see when the popcorn popping has slowed down , you kind of want maybe one pop per second .

Uh You can go ahead and turn the heat off and let the residual heat of the pan do the rest of the work .

So once we hear the popcorn stop , we can go ahead and remove the lid and let out all that trapped moisture .

Um Let this kind of dry out for a second .

At this point , we should have some beautiful albeit very plain popcorn .

Um Scoop this out using your favorite method .

Um Once it's cooled down a little bit and , and we can move on .

So now that we have some popcorn , it's time to make our buffalo coating .

So to make the coating , we're gonna need some sugar and about one cup of sugar to be exact .

Additionally , we're gonna need about two tea tablespoons of butter and we're also gonna need the buffalo part of the sauce .

So for this , I'm using about one third of a cup of Frank's red hot sauce .

This is kind of the hot sauce that really has that Buffalo Wing flavor .

And if you're feeling a little adventurous , feel free to add in some garlic powder and a few dashes of Worcester sauce .

Now , give us a good mix in and we can move on from here .

Now , the last ingredient we're gonna really need is some baking soda .

So it's good to have that ready at hand for the kind of last step .

So before we actually start to cook any of this , we need to kind of get everything in place since it's gonna go super quickly .

So go ahead and get out a baking tray and have something to line it , either a silicon mat or some wax paper due to its eventual stickiness .

I don't really recommend aluminum foil or I think it would be advisable here , but go ahead and lay your popcorn out on the silicon or wax paper .

And at this point , it also wouldn't hurt to preheat your oven to about 250 °F or about 128 °C .

Since as I said , things will start to move very quickly .

Once we start to cook the coating , we're now actually at the stage to actually make the Buffalo coating .

So start by placing a small sauce pan over medium heat and add about one half cup of water and we can go ahead and add our sugar in .

And as I've mentioned before , when making syrups and candies , it's really inadvisable at this point to mix it .

Mixing can cause what's known as crystallization and that will eventually lead to heartbreak .

So it's best just to let this thing do its own thing and just keep a close eye .

So we're gonna go ahead and let this thing kind of boil for five minutes .

At which point , our sugar mixture should be near about 250 °F .

And then we can go ahead and add the extra ingredients starting with the butter and then following with the Franks bread , hot sauce and giving this a good mix .

Lastly , we're going to add a pinch of baking powder .

And at this point , this is really where things are going to kick off , give this a stir and it will really start to foam up and this is actually what we want .

And now we got to move quickly from here so quickly .

In fact that I messed up the recording thinking that I got the beautiful money shot to win .

In reality .

I missed it .

So sorry , I missed up the beauty scene where the sauce is being poured all over the popcorn .

Trust me , the kitchen was full of swearing and sighing in this moment .

But as you can see here , a few seconds later , I was able to start refiling and at this point , just want to coat each piece of popcorn in as much sauce as possible , moving quickly before the coating starts to cool too much and kind of harden .

It should seem semi wet and soggy .

And in this moment , you may be thinking to yourself that you somehow screwed up , but don't worry , it's fine .

Once you have all the pieces as coated as well as you can , it's time to place the thing into the oven , making sure to leave two pieces of stray popcorn on your table as a mid afternoon snack .

So in the oven , it's at 250 °F .

And we're going to let this thing kind of slowly dry out in the oven and it will basically allow this moisture in the entire mixture to kind of leave the system .

We're going to let this thing go for about 45 minutes giving it one flip about halfway through .

Once 45 minutes are up , we can go ahead and remove this from the oven .

At this point , the popcorn should be kind of pliable .

Um If you wanna try to go for some bonus points , you can try to add some extra spices in here if you want to .

Um for example , I played with branch powder .

Once that was pretty interesting , you could also add some extra buffalo powder , which is also really delicious , but it's a completely optional step .

So all we gotta do at this point is just let this popcorn cool down for about 10 minutes .

At which point it should harden up beautifully and you can actually hear the sound of this and I think you'd agree that that sounds perfect .

We just got to put this into bowls and we're ready to serve to our guests or , I mean , if you're really feeling it , you could just eat this all yourself .

So , this popcorn is a nice mix of sweet and spicy and really it's sure to blow anybody's mind .

And I'm hoping you give this uh this really amazing star a try .

So with that , I want to say thank you for watching and please consider subscribing if you aren't already .

Um if not as well , check out my other videos .

There's a video on how do I make root beer ?

That's really fun .

So uh yeah , there's a lot of other videos on this channel and uh thank you for watching .

All right , bye .