May 31, 2024 Dell Cove Spices

Strawberry Lemonade Popcorn

Name: Strawberry Lemonade Popcorn
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 3 Tablespoons canola or vegetable oil; ⅓ Cup Dell Cove Movie Night popcorn kernels; ¼ Teaspoon salt; 2 Tablespoons butter; 1 Tablespoons water; 1 ½ Tablespoons lemon juice; 2/3 Cup granulated sugar; Zest of one lemon; ½ Cup freeze dried strawberries; Pinch of salt

Lemonade, that sweetened lemon beverage, is popular throughout the world. Sometimes carbonated, sometimes flat, sweetened with sugar or honey, it's a classic summer refresher. Strawberry lemonade goes one better with the addition of blended strawberries or juice to sweeten the tangy drink. We love the flavors so why not use them in a popcorn recipe?

You can buy pre-made strawberry lemonade popcorn but those are usually just made with artificial flavorings and we wanted real strawberry lemonade flavor. So we used real strawberries and real lemons. Some of the best lemon flavor comes from the zest so we used both zest and juice in our sugar syrup to make it nice and tangy. Freeze dried strawberries (look for the kind with no other ingredients except strawberries) are packed with concentrated flavor and grind up into a powder very easily. We reserved some pieces to mix in at the end but crushed the rest up and added it to our sugar and lemon syrup. It tasted like concentrated strawberry lemonade and that's exactly what we wanted.

As with other wet coatings, we like to bake it in the oven for a few minutes to seal in the flavor and maintain the popcorn's crunch. You can make this more or less tart depending on your personal tang tolerance. We promise this snack won't last long in your house because it sure doesn't in ours.