Salted popcorn is where most of us start, and where most of us stay. That’s because other flavours can be tricky: the seasoning falls to the bottom of the bowl, or the caramel sets into one big sticky lump. Here’s our guide to making your own exciting gourmet popcorn flavours at home.
Your machine decides your method
There are two kinds of popcorn machines, and how you flavour your popcorn depends on which type you have.
A hot air popper, like our Retro Edition Popcorn Maker, pops kernels in a stream of heated air with no oil at all. That makes beautifully light popcorn, but it also means the finished corn is bone dry, so anything powdered you throw at it slides straight off. All flavouring happens after popping, and you need to add something for the seasoning to cling to.
A kettle machine, like the cart-style Retro Popcorn Maker, pops in a heated kettle with oil and sugar going in alongside the kernels. Flavour can go in at the start, which is how real kettle corn is made, and the oil already present means dry seasonings stick far more readily afterwards.
Getting seasoning to stick to hot air popcorn
You need a thin layer of fat, distributed before any powder goes on. Melted butter is the obvious choice, but it carries water, which makes popcorn go soft quickly. Clarified butter or a light neutral oil in a spray bottle keeps the texture crisp for much longer.
Work in layers rather than dumping everything in at once. Tip a third of the popcorn into a large bowl, spray or drizzle lightly, scatter a third of the seasoning, then repeat twice. Tossing between layers gives you even coverage in a way a single pour never will.
Grind your seasonings finer than you think. Coarse sea salt bounces off and collects at the bottom; very fine salt clings nicely. The same goes for anything you are blending yourself, so give any spice mixes or flavouring an extra grind in a bladed grinder or a pestle and mortar before adding them to your popcorn.
Savoury flavours to experiment with
The following flavours all work on either type of machine. Quantities shown are per large bowl of popped corn, roughly what a single batch gives you, and the dry blends keep in a jar for weeks.
Smoked paprika and garlic
Add two teaspoons of smoked paprika, one teaspoon of garlic powder, one teaspoon of fine salt and a pinch of cayenne. Warm, slightly sweet and the most reliable crowd-pleaser of the lot.
Salt and vinegar
Add two teaspoons of malt vinegar powder and one teaspoon of fine salt. Adding the vinegar powder is the trick here; liquid vinegar turns popcorn to cardboard. If you cannot find it, a very light mist of vinegar immediately before eating is always a good option!
Parmesan and black pepper
One for when you really feel like mixing things up! Add three tablespoons of finely grated parmesan, a generous grind of black pepper and half a teaspoon of salt. Add it while the popcorn is still hot, so the cheese softens and bonds to the popcorn.
Curry and lime
Finally, the most unusual but flavoursome of all! Add two teaspoons of mild curry powder, the zest of one lime and one teaspoon of salt. Tip: dry the zest on a plate for ten minutes first or it will clump.
Sweet coatings and proper kettle corn
Kettle corn is the one worth learning. It can be a little trickier, and it is also the one that genuinely needs a kettle machine. Sugar goes into the kettle with the oil and kernels at the start, caramelises as the corn pops and coats each piece as it cooks, rather than being sprinkled on at the end. That is why shop-bought kettle corn tastes different from sugared popcorn.
The measuring cup supplied with our cart-style machine is the perfect size for this, with a larger 30g spoon and a smaller 12g spoon for oil and sugar. Start with the ratio in the manual and adjust from there. Too much sugar and it catches on the kettle wall and burns, which is unpleasant to clean and worse to taste.
On a hot air machine you cannot do this, but you can get close. Melt sugar with a little butter in a pan to a light caramel, pour it over the popcorn in a thin stream while tossing constantly, then spread it on a lined tray to set so it does not clump into one block.
Cinnamon sugar
Use three tablespoons of caster sugar to one teaspoon of ground cinnamon, applied over a light coat of melted butter. Simple, sweet and moreish!
Salted caramel
Make a basic caramel, add a generous pinch of flaky salt off the heat, then pour and toss. If you want to go further with the same flavour, our salted caramel fudge uses the same principle at a thicker set.
Try making proper toffee popcorn
Pop the corn in your machine as usual, then coat it in toffee made in a pan. To get that signature crunch, it needs finishing in a low oven.
Making the toffee
For a large bowl of popcorn you will need 100g of butter, 150g of light brown soft sugar, two tablespoons of golden syrup, a good pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
Melt the butter, sugar, syrup and salt together in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat, stirring until the sugar has fully dissolved and the mixture no longer feels grainy. Bring it to the boil, then stop stirring and let it bubble for three to four minutes until it darkens by a shade and thickens. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the bicarbonate of soda. The toffee will foam up, which is what you want: the tiny air bubbles make it lighter, so it spreads over the popcorn in a thin coat instead of setting into a hard shell. Pour it over straight away and toss quickly, as it starts to set within a minute or two.
Drying it in the oven
Once the popcorn is evenly coated in the toffee, spread it in a single layer on a lined baking tray and bake for 30 to 40 minutes at around 120°C, stirring every ten minutes to stop it setting into a slab. It will still feel slightly tacky coming out and will crisp as it cools.
What not to put in the machine
Nothing but kernels. On a kettle machine, the oil and sugar can go in too if the manual says so. Butter does not go in either machine: it burns and clogs, and on a hot air popper it will block the air channel. Pre-popped popcorn does not go back in to be reheated. Flavoured oils with solids in them will catch.
Season in a bowl, not in the machine. The only exception is sugar in a kettle machine, and only in the quantities the manual gives you.
Keeping what you do not eat
Plain and dry-seasoned popcorn keeps for two or three days in an airtight container at room temperature. Anything with butter on it is best eaten the same evening. Caramel- and toffee-coated popcorn, properly dried in the oven, will keep for about a week.
Never put popcorn in the fridge. It draws in moisture and goes soggy faster than it would on the side
Get started
Ready to try out some exciting new flavours? Pick the right machine for your kitchen and give it a go!