Bloody Popcorn – Red Candy Coated Popcorn
This perfectly crispy, candy coated popcorn is great for Halloween parties, trick or treating goodie bags or for a crunchy treat while watching a scary movie this spooky season.
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Bloody popcorn for Halloween is such a fun treat!
With this simple recipe you will have your own bowl of crunchy, sweet and spooky, candy coated popcorn in minutes.
This recipe makes around 4 cups of popcorn, the perfect amount for a large bowl shared over spooky movie. But it is super easy to double or even triple the ingredients to make an extra large batch if you are planning on a larger crowd.
Ingredients
Popcorn – Pop your own or use pre packaged if you like. You will need about 6 cups of popped popcorn. Make sure you prepare your popcorn just before it is needed for maximum crispiness.
Sugar – Plain white sugar works best here.
Butter – Butter give the coating its glossiness and a nicer flavor you could trade this out for coconut oil if you are dairy free.
Food coloring – the red coloring turns your plain popcorn into that beautifully red bloody popcorn that is perfect for Halloween. You can absolutely change this out for any color that you like.
Baking soda – The addition of baking soda makes your candy coating extra crispy. If you prefer a chewy candy popcorn you can leave out this step.
Tips and tricks for making candy coated popcorn
- Only pop your popcorn just before you need it. You want your popcorn to be as fresh as possible. Remove any unpopped kernels that you see as you place the popcorn into your bowl.
- If you are unsure on whether your sugar has simmered for long enough you can check this in 2 ways. Use a thermometer, the temperature should be 130 degrees celsius. You can also do a sugar test. Use a small metal spoon to drop a small amount of the mixture into a glass of cold water. The syrup should be able to be picked up out of the glass and form a firm, hard ball shape when rolled between your fingers.
- If you prefer your candy coated popcorn to be more on the chewy side then feel free to leave out the baking soda step.
- Make multiple batches with different colors. This is such a fun way to match your food to your parties colors.
- Store single servings in Halloween themed goody bags. Better yet store your cooled popcorn in clear plastic gloves and hand out as bloody severed hands.
Bloody Popcorn – Red Candy Coated Popcorn
Ingredients
Method
- Pop your popcorn. To do this you can either use a pop corn maker, stovetop method or use a packet of pre-popped popcorn.
- Place your popcorn into a very large bowl removing any unpopped kernels as you go.
- Line a large oven tray with baking paper and preheat your oven to 160 degrees fan bake.
- Place your sugar, butter, water and food coloring into a medium sized saucepan. Bring to a simmer, stirring regularly, until the sugar has fully dissolved.
- Continue to heat your sugar mixture, without stirring, for about 3-4 minutes. The temperature of the sugar needs to reach 130 degrees Celsius (just past the soft ball stage).
- Remove your saucepan from the heat and add in your baking soda. Mix this through very quickly before you pour the sugar syrup over your prepared popcorn. Use a wooden spoon to quickly mix and coat the popcorn with your candy coating. Be careful as the coating will still be very hot at this point.
- Once your popcorn is evenly coated, transfer it onto your baking tray. Spread the popcorn out as evenly as possible.
- Bake your popcorn for 10 minutes.
- As soon as your popcorn has baked break up the pieces into a large bowl.
- Cool slightly before serving.
Notes
To store your candy coated popcorn you can divide your popcorn into individual servings and store in snaplock bags to maintain freshness for up to 3 days. Chang the color of this popcorn by simply swapping out the food coloring to another color.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my candy coated popcorn recipe. I hope you enjoy trying this out for yourself. Please feel free to add any questions or comments below. I am happy to help out wherever possible and I would love to hear how this recipe worked out for you.
Crystal Rose
