Bake Sale!
That’s it, I’m officially a mom. In case the whole pregnancy, labor, delivery mess didn’t convince me, this is it. I spent my day making treats for the kids’ bake sale. Always trying hard not to take ourselves too seriously, and because I can’t eat chocolate, I didn’t “bake” just anything… Noah and I made popcorn balls!
Popcorn balls have been one of my favorite treats for as long as I can remember. We used to make them at my grandparents’ house every Christmas; I have such fond memories of those times! Today I use the same recipe written by my grandmother in pencil on an ancient index card.
Every time time I make them I manage to do something wrong; some things never change. The recipe is very simple. Make popcorn, make this eewy, gooey, sticky sauce, poor the sauce over the popcorn and form into balls. The first year I made these on my own I let 3 milliseconds pass between pouring the boiling sauce over the popcorn and attempting to form balls. I don’t remember having to wait for anything to cool as a kid! I also don’t remember how long it took that to heal but I’ve never done it since! This time I put all the ingredients in the sauce at once, two are supposed to go in at the very end of the boiling process. Oops. They still taste great!
And because I enjoy my memories of popcorn ball making so fondly I figured I’d pass on the tradition. Here’s how it went down -
Noah, Monkey and I pressed the popcorn into balls. Noah was in charge of picking stray kernels off my hands for his snack.
He was also excellent at finding all the unpopped, hard seed kernels and putting them aside.
Don’t you love his dimple!?
I made a little one for him -
In order to bribe him for this -
Did I mention these things are sticky!?
We also baked some double chocolate chip muffins for the boring people at the sale.
Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope your festivities are just as sweet!
February 12th, 2010 at 11:51 am
are there any leftover popcorn balls for sale?
February 15th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
I love Noah’s joy in these photos! I’m sure his memories of baking with you will be a special to him as your memories of making popcorn balls with your grandparents! And good job on bribing him with sweets