Pop-py Chow

Yes, you read that title correctly. Poppy chow, not to be confused with Puppy chow (aka muddy buddies). Poppy chow is made with popcorn and puppy chow is made with Chex or Crispix cereal.

I had super high hopes for this recipe and I wound up being quite underwhelmed. How could this be so? Really, what is there not to love about the combination of chocolate, peanut butter, butter and powdered sugar. If this combination is great on cereal, it's got to be equally great on popcorn. Meh.When the topping mixture coats the cereal, the end result has some crunch to it, when the same mixture coats, popcorn, it gets kind of mushy. I never realized how much the crunch played a part of the deliciousness. Mush factor aside, I did find myself uncontrollably eating copious amounts of this popcorn. It is addicting even in it's imperfect state.

This snack was best the day it was made. The older it got, the chewier it got, and not in a good way. After three days, the center of the popcorn was sometimes so gummy I had to spit it out. So essentially, after a few days, the popcorn was just a method of transporting the peanut butter chocolate coating from the bowl to your mouth. I was 100% OK with that.

So, after I've said all this, why would you make the popcorn version in the first place? Well, popcorn is insanely cheaper than cereal. Or maybe you have a family of sneaky cereal eaters and you have plans to make puppy chow to take to some gathering that is in a few hours and discover you are missing cereal and are too crabby/lazy/unshowered/etc to go to the store. Of course that is assuming that you have a bag of popcorn kernels in your pantry. If you don't then I guess you are outta luck!

You can find the recipe for poppy chow over at Tasty Kitchen.

Poppy Chow from Tasty Kitchen
9 cups Air-Popped Popcorn
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
½ cups Natural Peanut Butter
¼ cups Butter (1/2 Stick)
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1-½ cup Powdered Sugar

n microwave or double boiler, melt chocolate, peanut butter, and butter until melted. Stir in vanilla. Place the popped popcorn* in a large bowl and pour the chocolate mixture over all. Stir until evenly coated. Add the powdered sugar and stir until each piece is covered. Spread out on cookie sheets to set the chocolate. Try not to eat the whole batch immediately. If you have any leftover, store in an airtight container.

*Be sure to first remove any unpopped kernels from the popcorn! We don’t want any broken teeth!