Have fun making these creepy sweets – the perfect gift for any "trick or treaters" that come knocking at your door.
You will need:
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Popcorn kernels |
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2 - 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil |
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200 grams marshmallows |
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50 grams butter |
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Jelly worms or other creepy crawly sweets |
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Large heavy bottomed pan with lid |
1.
Heat up the vegetable oil in the large pan over a high heat, but don’t allow it to smoke. You can test if the temperature of the oil is right for popping the popcorn by dropping a couple of popcorn kernels into the pan – if the kernels pop or spin round then oil is the right temperature for popping popcorn.
2.
Cover the base of the pan with popcorn kernels and hold the lid on firmly. If you can find a pan with a transparent lid then you can watch what is happening. Keep shaking the pan, coating each popcorn kernel in oil, until the popping stops.
3.
Remove the pan from the heat and place the popcorn in a large bowl removing all the unpopped kernels.
Making the worm balls
4.
Melt the marshmallows and butter in a large heavy saucepan over a low heat, keep stirring the mixture so you don’t burn it on the bottom of the saucepan.
5.
Remove the pan from the heat and gradually mix in the popcorn and jelly worms making sure everything gets a good coating of marshmallow mixture.
6.
With well-buttered hands roll the mixture into conker-sized balls – try to make sure a worm is visible on each ball and place on greaseproof paper to cool.
What’s happening?
Popcorn kernels are the seeds of one type of corn; if you planted them they’d grow into a new plant. These seeds have a very hard outer coating; inside they contain a little bit of water so the cells are kept alive until the seeds start to grow.
When you heat up the popcorn kernels the water inside turns into steam and expands. This increases the pressure inside the kernel until it is strong enough to burst through the outer layer.
When the kernel explodes the expansion of the steam puffs out the soft insides of the kernel - this can be so explosive that popped corn can be 30 – 40 times it’s original size.
Some kernels don’t have a high enough water content to create the pressure needed to pop the popcorn – these are the ones that you find left at the bottom of the pan unpopped.
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