D is for Daisy's Popcorn Balls

My "D" post about donuts fell through on Sunday morning while in the research phase, when the first hole-in-the-wall donut shop was out of donuts by 7:45 in the morning (after opening at 7:00 am) and the second one was closed up and looked like it had been for years (damn you, Google maps, for letting me down!), and we settled for ones from Lamar's Donuts, a Kansas City chain that makes fine donuts, but not ones worthy of an entire blog post. (And if you're wondering why I didn't MAKE donuts, the answer is I already did that in the 2015 A to Z Challenge, and homemade donuts, while delicious, are VERY, VERY LABOR INTENSIVE.)

I needed a Plan B and needed it fast, so I started leafing through recipe books but not finding anything "D" worthy. Then I picked up an old 3-ring binder that I once used to collect recipes I had cut out of magazines or newspapers and found it:

My uncle sent this to me probably 15 years ago after I found out he was in possession of my Great Aunt Daisy's popcorn ball recipe, and I stuck it in this book but never tried to make it. The recipe is easily 100 years old.

So, my grandparents moved from town (population 400) to the family farm way out in the country when my uncle was going into high school. Uncle Bradley was going to live in town with my two great aunts (my grandfather's unmarried younger sisters) so he could attend high school. My mom threw such a fit that she had to leave HER friends and live out in the middle of nowhere and attend a one room school that my grandparents let her live with my great aunts as well. My great aunt Edith was a fabulous country cook. Being the thoroughly spoiled "baby" of the family, my great aunt Daisy was the one who had time to play games and cook the only things she knew how to make: homemade candy.

We have a few of Daisy's recipes, but not many, because she didn't use a recipe for most treats she made. And if you DID get her to write down ingredients and at least make a stab at amounts of each, you got directions like "cook until it looks done" which is completely useless information.

Daisy made these popcorn balls all the time, and the family loved them. Except me. I never liked them. They were made with sorghum molasses, which has a very strong taste, but I thought I'd give it a shot for the sake of the A to Z Challenge.

As you can see, the recipe is a little vague. A "pan" of popcorn? A "lump" of butter? I did my best.

This was supposed to be the photo
of the assembled ingredients.....

Molasses, sugar, vinegar, and not
enough salt coming to a boil

After I threw in the lump of butter and
the baking soda and also after I saw
that the lump of butter was supposed to have
gone in with the molasses and stuff

Poured over the "pan" of popcorn and
mixed as well as I could

Completed popcorn balls. I seem
to remember Daisy's being lighter in
color (I probably didn't beat the syrup nearly
enough since I didn't actually beat it at all,
although I did give it a vigorous stir) and
had better coverage. Nora Pearl is 
indifferent to the whole thing.

The biggest befuddlement was in how long to cook the syrup. Her directions say to cook until it spins threads. I thought this meant when you lifted the spoon and let the syrup drip off that little threads of candy would spin from the trickle of syrup, but it never did that. I tried drizzling a small amount in a glass of ice water to see if threads spun, but they did not. I put the candy thermometer in the mixture and made sure it reached thread stage on the thermometer, which it did, but I still don't think that's what she meant. I also added more salt to the syrup when I tasted some of the cooled syrup in the ice water, but it still wasn't enough salt to cut all the sharpness of the molasses. Better, but not enough.

My husband, Ground Zero for taste testing, ate one of the three popcorn balls I took to him, then handed the rest back to me.

I tried one and other than thinking it desperately needed more salt, I thought it didn't suck as much as I remembered from my childhood. One was enough, but I didn't hate it.

Varying reviews from my taste testers at school, from "hard on dental work but yummy in tummy" to "good but REALLY sweet" to "the taste just STAYS there and doesn't go away" (I get you, sister, I get you).

Not going into the rotation for sweet snacks, but at least my curiosity has been satisfied, probably forever.