Spiced sugar & Christmas popcorn

A little festive treat

Spiced sugar & Christmas popcorn

Spiced sugar & Christmas popcorn

Serves Serves 8
Time Cooks In20 minutes plus drying time
DifficultySuper easy
Nutrition per serving Plus
  • Calories 204 10%
  • Fat 7.3g 10%
  • Saturates 2g 10%
  • Sugars 11.5g 13%
  • Salt 0.03g 1%
  • Protein 3g 6%
  • Carbs 32.5g 13%
  • Fibre 2.3g -
Of an adult's reference intake
Jamie Cooks Christmas
recipe adapted from

Jamie Cooks Christmas

Tap For Method

Ingredients

  • 1 vanilla pod , halved lengthways
  • 1 kg unrefined caster sugar
  • olive oil
  • 1 knob butter
  • 250 g popcorn kernels
  • 6 tablespoons spiced sugar
  • 3 fresh bay leaves
  • 2 oranges , finely grated zest of
  • 2 lemons , finely grated zest of
  • 6 whole cloves
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 10 gratings whole nutmeg
Tap For Method

The cost per serving below is generated by Whisk.com and is based on costs in individual supermarkets.  For more information about how we calculate costs per serving read our FAQS

Jamie Cooks Christmas
recipe adapted from

Jamie Cooks Christmas

Tap For Ingredients

Method

  1. What’s mad about this is that, even though all of these spices and flavours are so pungent on their own, they actually taste like tutti frutti sweets when together.
  2. You can use this sugar for so many things; from a sweetener for porridge, sprinkled over baked bananas, or to make a gorgeous Chantilly cream. It will keep for a while, so if you’re going to make it, you may as well make a batch and keep it in an airtight container.
  3. Whack the bay leaves, orange and lemon zest and all of your spices into a food processor and give it a good whiz. Once that’s well blended add your sugar and whiz again so you’ve got a lovely spiced sugar. Because there’s quite a bit of moistness in the zest and vanilla pod it’s a good idea to pour the sugar onto a baking tray, spread it out evenly then leave it to dry for a few hours.
  4. Once the sugar is nice and dry, pass it through a sieve to catch any larger pieces of spices. Discard anything left behind in the sieve then put your sieved sugar into an airtight container, where it will keep happily for ages.
  5. Spiced Christmas popcorn
  6. Popcorn only takes a few minutes to make but it smells, sounds and tastes brilliant; it’s a great thing to have going on in your home. If you’re feeling a bit creative you can divide the popcorn between some little sandwich bags, tie them with ribbons then give them out as a bit of a Christmas treat to adults and kids. If the sugar settles on the bottom of the bag just give the bag a shake before tucking in.
  7. Put a few lugs of oil and your butter in a large pan over a high heat. Once the butter has melted, add the popcorn and stir well to coat the kernels. Put the lid on straight away and leave it for a few minutes. It will take a few minutes to get going so be patient. As the popcorn gets going give the pan a shake every 30 seconds or so to make sure the kernels all get popped. Put your spiced sugar in a large bowl and when the popcorn is ready add it to the bowl and quickly toss it and stir it into the sugar so the hot popcorn picks up those lovely spiced flavours.
  8. Serve the popcorn in a big bowl or in little bowls dotted about the house. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that this is one of the nicest popcorns I’ve ever had. It’s delicious and has to be better for you than caramels, toffees or cheap artificial sweets.
Jamie Cooks Christmas
recipe adapted from

Jamie Cooks Christmas