Butterkist Sweet & Salty Microwave Popcorn

 I made a mistake.

I went to the local shop that sells the most interesting selection of snacks, and I fancied microwave popcorn. Did they sell it? Yes they did. And there it was on the shelf. I used to love microwave popcorn; nothing wrong with the cold stuff that comes in a bag, but the microwave kind is a different beast.

So after looking at the selection I grabbed a box. 

I grabbed the wrong box. In recent years my tastes have changed and while once upon a time I probably would have very much enjoyed the Sweet & Salty flavour, it’s not for me these days. Just too sweet. But absolutely nothing wrong with the popcorn itself.

Except that time when I allowed the microwaveable bag to open too far while the corn was popping, and then it gets stuck against the sides of the microwave instead of going around and around. And then it starts to burn. I should have tried to stop that.

Anyway, not for me. Maybe for you.

Butterkist Simply Salted Popcorn

 

This gently flavoured popcorn isn’t as exciting as the Sweet & Salty version of my previous post. It is lightly salted, and lightly buttery, which may not sound very gourmet. But the popcorn itself is tip top. Really good quality, very nice indeed. 

If you like subtle flavours then this is the popcorn for you. Very easy to eat and extremely moreish.

Butterkist Deliciously Sweet & Salty Popcorn

 

Absolutely delicious! Really nice quality popcorn and a lovely taste. 

What more could you want? Umm, yum, I think this is the best popcorn I have ever tasted. Honestly, so good!

I am not sure why this simple combination of sweet and salt is so extremely tasty, but it is. I’m not surprised it won a Great Taste Award in 2024.

Run to your nearest supplier and buy a packet for yourself because I’m not sharing. I got mine in the local Co-op.

Really good!

Butterkist Crunchy Toffee Popcorn

 

Well, what can I say?

This yummy packet of Butterkist popcorn says “creating smiles since 1914”, and who knew we had popcorn such a long time ago? I mean, did the characters in Upstairs Downstairs ever eat popcorn? What about those people in Downtown Abbey? Perhaps they did. But unfortunately I’ve never really watched either of these popular programmes so I cannot really comment. 

Maybe the Ancient Mexican people of 9,000 years ago who first grew maize (thanks to Wikipedia), made popcorn? You’d think there would be ample opportunity to drop kernels into your cooking fire, and then… pop! Chicomecoatl’s your auntie and you have popcorn. I wonder how long it took for popcorn to be imported into Europe? Anyway, the poor old Ancient Mexicans would surely not have the benefit of this sensational toffee sauce.

This genuinely is a great packet of popcorn. Very nicely popped corn. I suppose that Butterkist has had plenty of time to perfect the process so (good news) there was no dribble of unpopped kernels at the bottom of the bag. And the toffee sauce is delicious. Totally delicious! But I shouldn’t have eaten this whole packet all by myself.

Yes of course. That wasn’t good for me. But I cannot remember the last time I ate popcorn, so provided I don’t eat another packet tomorrow, or not for another month or two at least, I think I can get away with that. 

Highly recommended though. 

Tesco Salted Caramel Party Mix

Hmm…. I thought this Party Mix from Tesco might be worth a try, and it kind of was, but, er, it is a bit of an odd mixture. Tasty, definitely tasty, but a lot of the bits are broken which is a shame. It’s hard to appreciate a small pretzel if it’s broken into 6 pieces. And the mix is a lot more sweet than it is savoury. I think I would prefer it the other way around.

According to the back of the packet we have maple flavour caramel peanuts with white chocolate with caramel buttons (complicated), milk chocolate buttons, salted caramel toffee popcorn, salted wheat pretzel knots and decorated milk chocolate coated cereal crisps. OK then. Are the shiny pink balls the “decorated milk chocolate coated cereal crisps” do you think? I’m not sure. It really is hard to tell.

All the elements are tasty, but everything is just a bit too sweet. More like what you might serve at a child’s birthday party, not so much to snack on with a glass of wine. Definitely wouldn’t go with a beer.

Yes it’s sweet. No it’s not very salty.

Corners Popcorn Crisps Mature Cheddar

Trust Tall Elegant taste tester to come up with yet another crispy snack you never knew existed. She's always going out shopping at lunchtime for lunch (and food for the rabbit which likes fresh garden peas please), and discovering some fancy new crispy snack I never saw before.

Yes, it’s a strangely triangular crispy snack made out of popcorn. Who thought of that? The new shape of popcorn eh? Well, who know?

Not us obviously. I didn't try more than one of this crispy snack because I go home at 2 (just after lunchtime), but I did rather wonder why. Why did anyone think to invent this snack? What's wrong with popcorn that it needs to be squashed into a triangular snack?

I don't think this crispy snack was nasty or anything. I just couldn't really work out why you'd want it.

Great design on the bar code though. I always appreciate a good bar code design (or little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly).

Osem Popco Butterscotch Corn Snack

This is popcorn. So why call it a corn snack? That seems odd.

Tech taste tester told me he doesn't do popcorn (fair enough) and not many of the reluctant taste testers seemed mad keen but the Chef has happily snacked down most of this 75g packet without complaint. Trust me: he complains if he feels the need.

I couldn't quite grasp why I didn't really like this crispy snack. The popcorn itself is perfectly fine. Nothing odd there at all; and some popcorn can be really bad. I think it must be the butterscotch. I was expecting toffee. No matter that the label says "butterscotch" in fairly large letters I still expected toffee flavour.

If I had been expecting butterscotch I think I'd have been happy. Expectations are weird aren't they?

Kosher for passover.

M&S Assorted Popcorn 6 Bags

This turquoise packet contains 6 little packets of popcorn: 2 sweet (in a red bag), 2 salted (in a blue bag) and 2 sweet & salty (in a shocking pink bag).

Why salted, but sweet & salty? Who knows? Who cares? Well, anyway, I'm not sure that popcorn is Marks & Spencers' forte. Over the years we have taste tested a whole slew of crisps and crispy snacks from Marks & Spencer and some of them have been great, and some of them haven't, but I don't recall any of them being... well... meh.

Perfectly OK. Just not very thrilling. Not very exciting. I think this popcorn, these popcorns deserve more flavour. A bit more oomph.

And, I don't know. Call me picky if you like, but I don't know why M&S chose these colours for the packets. Turquoise, pink and blue I get. But the red doesn't work for me at all. And somehow this multipack of popcorn didn't pass the thrill threshold either.

Slightly Red Haired Bristolian kindly donated this popcorn as part of a taste testers' night out (or in my case, in) watching season 3 of Shetland. Yes, you too can buy Shetland on DVD, send out for pizza, taste test some popcorn and be just like us. But I wasn't that impressed with this selection.

Lidl Snaktastic Sweet Popcorn

Finely sugared for a delicious taste says the blurb on this supersized packet of popcorn from Lidl.

Slightly Red Haired Bristolian brought this packet of popcorn into the office so that the reluctant taste testers could save her from eating the entire thing all by herself. She said she loved the gentle sweetness so much that she really could eat the lot. She also said that it was just exactly like cinema popcorn.

Now I am frightfully picky so I practically never go to the cinema for fear I won't enjoy the film, and if I do I almost never have popcorn. But if I do have popcorn I prefer the salty buttery kind so I can't tell if Slightly Red Haired Bristolian is right, but New Forest taste tester fully agrees with her. Er.. could the packaging design be some sort of clue?

This is a nice light sugary popcorn. I wouldn't say this was a super exciting popcorn but it is quite nice. Even Architectural taste tester; she who hardly ever comments, was quite impressed at the niceness.

It’s a pity I keep reading this as “snake-tastic” 🙂.

Pret a Manger Sweet n Salt Popcorn

Whenever I go somewhere different there’s always a chance that I will come across a new crispy snack. So last week Noble Friend and I went to the V & A to see the Winnie the Pooh exhibition (wonderful to see the original drawings), and on the way home Noble Friend had to top up her Oyster card so I wandered into Pret a Manger to see if they had any new varieties of crisp. Well they didn’t, but then I thought why not try a packet of popcorn instead?

Why not indeed. The reluctant taste testers haven’t tried popcorn in ages.

Perfectly popped. It’s much harder to perfect the art of popping corn than you might think. The type of corn, the seasoning... even the humidity, all play a part in this surprisingly tricky balancing act. So says the packaging, and it’s quite interesting especially considering how not very nice some commercially produced popcorn is.

And the blurb on the packaging is quite correct. I was very impressed with this popcorn. Very nicely popped, lovely and fluffy, pretty much just right. And the flavour is just right too. Just enough sweet and just enough salt. Not a strong taste but... just right.

I liked this popcorn, the reluctant taste testers (except those that generally don’t like the concept of popcorn) liked this popcorn, and I suspect Goldilocks would have liked this popcorn. Because it’s just right.

Passionately popped. Very nice flavour.

M&S Christmas Belgian Dark Chocolate & Ginger Popcorn

A belated Happy New Year crispy snack fans.

I've not been so well since the New Year so didn't feel up to much snacking. But luckily I am up and about again and was at work today when Noble Friend came back from Marks & Spencer in triumph with this packet of Belgian dark chocolate and ginger popcorn.

Now, I am not crazy for ginger. I don't even much care for ginger nuts and certainly don't want any truck with crystallised ginger. Ugh. So imagine my surprise when I tried Noble Friend's discovery, and found it rather good.

The label tells me that the popcorn is coated in toffee with ginger, and then hand drizzled with the chocolate. It's a very nice mixture. Most of the reluctant taste testers were happy to graze gently and even the highly discerning Architectural taste tester was pleased to approve. Interestingly though, Slightly Red Haired Bristolian told me she wasn't mad keen; even though she loves ginger. It just goes to show that you cannot predict how anyone will react.

The packaging is a simple plastic bag with only a little card tag to identify the product. But of course the clear plastic allows the pretty popcorn with its drizzle of dark chocolate to shine through.

Tastier than I was expecting, quite nicely popped corn too, and probably not available for very much longer as it it part of the Christmas 2016 range.

M&S Fizzy Fangstastic Popcorn Orange Flavoured

OK so Tall Elegant taste tester discovered a truly weird Hallowe'en product at Marks & Spencer. Fizzy orange popcorn. Really? Apparently yes.

No tricks just treats says the packet.

Only this popcorn isn't very fizzy and it isn't very orangey. So it is a bit of a trick. At least, the flavour seems to be a bit changeable: some bits of popcorn have a lot more taste or fizz than others. This is something you might expect because it does happen quite a lot. Trouble is, the popcorn isn't really top notch so I thought it was a little disappointing. Not nearly enough lovely light puffy kernel and rather too much of the kernel skin.

I didn't say much to the reluctant taste testers but as always they made up their own minds. Not much of this popcorn got eaten so I draw my own conclusions. This weird flavour was never going to be a favourite for the taste testers. And the popcorn isn't very fangtastic (quite apart from anything else: no fangs). It doesn't even smell very orangey.

Hey ho. You can't have everything.

Magicorn Eazy Pop Microwave Popcorn Butter

Just for a change I thought the reluctant taste testers might like to try microwave popcorn. Butter flavour. And it is fun to stand by the microwave listening to the pops, waiting for the popping to run down and almost stop so you know it's time to whip the bag out and open it gently. Yum!

The trouble with microwave popcorn is that you get a vast pile of it all at once, and if you don't eat it quickly and while it's hot, somehow you lose the attraction of having gone to the trouble of sticking a packet into the microwave.

The packet says perfectly popped in minutes! And it was. Very nice properly popped popcorn, lightly salted and not too much butter. So probably better for you than one with masses of butter dripping all over... although I do like too much butter myself.

Proper popcorn should have a light almost velvety texture and squeak when you bite it. This does. It's not a brand I have ever seen before but I might just try the other flavours. Very nice.

Propercorn Sour Cream & Black Pepper Popcorn

Another packet of Propercorn popcorn, another packet of proper popcorn. and quite an interesting taste too.

I know not everyone enjoys sour cream as an addition to a crispy snack; it can take a bit of getting used to but I felt it worked quite well here. And the heat of the black pepper with the cool of the sour cream seemed to me to be a good combination.

Very nice popcorn. Just the right light airy consistency that you want.

And here's a visitor to our garden. He was asleep in the middle of the lawn when I got up this morning. He could see me standing at my bedroom window so I didn't want to risk opening it. I only just picked up my camera in time to grab a shot or two. Next minute he was sneaking off through the hedge.

Bloom's Popcorn Sweet & Salty

Tasty lightly popped popcorn from Bloom's. 

Interestingly the popcorn started out light and airy at about.... 11 o'clock in the morning. By tea time the few remaining popped kernels were quite sticky, and the last remaining bits were determined to stick in the bowl rather than go into the rubbish! So in a few hours this popcorn really changed its texture. It wasn't even particularly hot today so I'm not sure how come that happened. Maybe it's simply the sugar that goes to make the "sweet" part of the flavour.

Slightly Red Haired Bristolian taste tester had never tried Sweet & Salty popcorn and was very dubious. But it turns out she liked it almost better than anyone.

Propercorn Sweet & Salty Popcorn

Proper popcorn, properly popped and simply flavoured sweet and salty. Simple and tasty. Nothing fancy. The reluctant taste testers quite enjoyed this honest snack.

There really is not much more to add except to thank Tall taste tester for contributing this little bag of popcorn.

Willy Chase's Fit Corn Cacao & Coconut

I'm fairly sure I saw this air popped popcorn at the Gloucester Services on the M5 and I didn't buy it because I thought this flavour sounded suspiciously nasty (I'm not a fan of coconut). However, Noble Friend went to Fortnum & Mason yesterday and bought this packet.

So instead of simply suspecting it might be nasty... we were able to test my theory.

Well, the packet is made of something that feels like a posh version of grease proof paper. No idea what it is, but it has a lovely matte texture and looks very smart. And the unusual chocolate brown of this packet was very carefully chosen for this particular popcorn.

The popcorn itself has a very unusual look. It's as though someone has sifted coco powder over it but obviously something more complex has gone on.

I have to admit the overpowering aroma of coconut (remember I really don't like it) put me off completely. In a cowardly fashion I couldn't bring myself to try. Tall taste tester tried one puffed kernel and flinched away. Most of the reluctant taste testers really didn't like this popcorn. However, Slightly Red Haired Bristolian taste tester said she thought it wasn't as nasty as she had been expecting.

I put some of the popcorn back in the bag for the Chef to try. He is a fan of coconut. And he ate about a handful, but even he was not that fetched. He remarked on the very strong aroma, and also pointed out that the popcorn isn't right.

All the reluctant taste testers have said, about all three of the Fit Corn flavours we have tried, that the corn is not properly popped. It isn't light and fluffy with a light quick bite. The Chef said he would have liked it better if the texture was better.

Sadly I don't think that air popping works for us. What a shame.

Willy Chase's Fit Corn Goats Cheese, Red Onion & Thyme

Oh dear. I don't think this popcorn was a success with the reluctant taste testers.

Put it like this: Noble Friend refused to try (she doesn't like goats cheese), Tall Elegant taste tester spat hers out (she doesn't like goats cheese either), and Giraffe Fan (who loves goats cheese) did not go back for more. I confess I wasn't mad keen myself.

The problem is that the popcorn itself isn't nice. The texture is all wrong. It should be light and fluffy with a light quick crunch. And it isn't.

And the flavour... to be frank I don't think the flavour is goats cheese. Some sort of cheese maybe, yes, some sort of cheese with herbs. Dutch taste tester said she felt it could be a good flavour for a crisp. But not for popcorn. I think perhaps she's right.

This is a real shame. I wanted to like this popcorn. It seems to be doing all the right things. Or is it?

The packet tells me this product of free from gluten, frying, wheat, peanuts, MSG, GM/Frankenstein, twee stories, and guilt.

Honestly I would not normally expect gluten, wheat, peanuts or MSG with my popcorn. This is air popped so I see how you can eliminate any suspicion of frying. Getting rid of twee stories is easy, and I don't fee guilt when I try a crispy snack. So basically I am pleased to know there is no GM corn in this packet. But come on, don't congratulate yourself for not adding ingredients that shouldn't be there in the first place. It's like saying this popcorn contains no fish. Of course it doesn't; and fish popcorn sounds horrible. Oh dear. I hope no-one invents that!

Is this me being grumpy and difficult? Probably. But I feel disappointed that this obviously carefully made product is not as good as it should be.

M&S Spirit of Summer Mojito Mocktail Popcorn

Tall Elegant taste tester found this popcorn on special and so picked up a packet. And I'm not terribly surprised it was on special. 

The popcorn seems fine, the toffee works OK but is very sweet, and then there's the mint. Which is surprisingly minty with a proper hit of aromatic mintyness going on. But it is kind of unexpected. And the whole thing is quite sticky.

I wasn't in the kitchen more's the pity, because apparently the colour drained from his face, but I did hear the howls of surprise (and horror?) from Tech taste tester when he tried this popcorn. He said it was all shiny and caramel-looking and he wasn't expecting the mint. He admits to noticing the mint, but was not expecting such a minty mintyness. Well, you wouldn't, would you?

Dutch taste tester said it made her want rum. Noble Friend said she quite liked it. Was it she who likened the flavour it to lemon and lime? I can't remember. But to be honest I couldn't give most of  it away. Even Extremely Senior Volunteer taste tester wasn't eating it. And seriously, he will eat almost anything.

So the reluctant taste testers and I cannot in all honesty give this popcorn a very good review.

Bloom's Popcorn Salted Caramel

Hand-popped corn with a muscavado sugar caramel. Sounds very tasty doesn't it?

And it is tasty. Very sweet, but quite tasty.

The problem with this popcorn is the popcorn. The back of the packet tells us that our jumbo-sized popcorn is hand-popped the traditional way, in small batches in steel popping pans, to give crunch and character. But it isn't jumbo-sized. Or if it is then pretty much all the popcorn I've ever tried qualifies as jumbo.

And to be honest I wasn't that impressed at all the tough little bits of kernel skin (if that's a thing) that got stuck in my teeth.

None of the reluctant taste testers were particularly enthusiastic about this popcorn. In fact, Noble Friend said she thought it far too sweet. We didn't quite finish the packet.

I have another packet of Bloom's popcorn to try so we'll see how we get on with that.