Popcorn Ball Massacre

I'm off my baking game… How the hell does one screw up popcorn balls? Corn syrup. Sugar. Butter.

Photo: Pioneer Woman
Recipe: http://www.familycircle.com/recipe/creepy-caramel-popcorn-balls/

Disaster. I'm thinking, how cute is this recipe? Super cute. Creepy Popcorn Balls? Super creepy cute. My son would absolutely go bonkers for a sphere of sweetness. So, I gallop to the store… Grab the popcorn. Check. Scoop up the M&Ms. Check. I need butter sticks. Check. Check. Already have candy corn. And check. I traipse my happy ass back home with my grocery bag of susie homemaker  goodies. Crap. I need a saucepan. Wah… Eh, guess this small one will do. I'm stirring. And stirring. Ugh. Still stirring. Sigh. Apparently -constant- is the only option, since sugar caramelizes to a crispy crunch if you're not paying attention. Only experience could teach you that snack lesson. Listen, I like to think I got this Martha Stewart thing on lockdown. No pun intended. But, I got that domestic goddess flow. Pioneer Woman makes me feel like I can do it all. Duh, I'm Super Woman. With my invisible cookie sheet, I can wing it through any recipe. Hmmm… How do I use my magic lasso here? Family Circle showed me that. Not how to use my magic lasso, but that I can… oh you get what I'm putting down. And, my self-proclaimed (and recently acknowledged) O.C.D. keeps my house pretty fucking spotless too. Oh, the parchment tornado?  Ignore that stationary, spread all over the floors. The notes by the piano? Music sheets. Uh… the onion skin in the hallway? HMmmm…. bills? I think? Or maybe receipts that need filing? Ok.. stop looking around. Yes there's a mess of store ads and money saving coupons on my table. But, I'm not done with that pile. Judge me all day. I don't care. I have the power to circle around fast enough to change my clothes in a wind tunnel. I hate paper and for whatever reason, thats the one thing I can't keep control of… freaking paper monster. Chomp. Chomp. It would probably help if I condensed down all the scripts I used for auditions. Tossing those in the garbage would be beneficial; both for the letterhead takeover and spiritually. The asshole in me likes to keep tabs on those who passed on me… the sickness is real. And yes, can you believe it? There are those who've actually passed on this Super Woman. The gall. The pages and pages of lyrics though, I like to reference those from time to time so probably best to hang on to those. Excuses. You collect porcelain carousel horses. I collect paper. Ok… moving on from that failed Queen of Clean rant…

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen… Is the mixture in the saucepan supposed to get big and foamy? The directions spout a four minute cool time on the saucepan bubbling thing. Since I popped the popcorn already… I spread it out on foil and wait. Tick Tock. 1 minute. I keep staring at the mixture waiting for something to happen -tick tock, 2 minutes- and while I'm not sure what's supposed to happen here… tick tock, 2 minutes and 35 seconds….  It's been long enough. I pour this goop all over the popcorn like it says and it drizzles straight past it and onto the damn foil. What the… So, I grab the spatula and start trying to move the popcorn around so I can coat these kernels with the sticky concoction. No one told me to coat the spatula with cooking oil first. Yes they did. Read the directions. They did. But I didn't, so therefore, I was making an even bigger mess. Screw it. I coat my hands with non-stick cooking spray and dive in. Covered in sticky goo as much as I believe the popcorn can be, I try to mold them into balls. They don't stay. The stupid balls fall apart as soon as I put them down on the counter. What the hell. Its like a mountainous popcorn range with trees of M&Ms scattered on my floor. After about twenty minutes of this chaos, I wash my hands and calmly walk away. What? Huh? oh… yes, that was absolutely a flying spatula. Spatulas have wings. And so do non-stick, cooking spray cans.