Mushroom vs. butterfly popcorn
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
I started getting some emails from a concession supply distributor a few weeks ago and the guy wanted me to buy some popcorn from him. He sold a variety of popcorn known as “mushroom”. It pops into little round balls and is mainly used in making caramel corn. Because the caramel is mixed into already popped popcorn and is stirred by putting it into a giant rotating machine, the kernels tend to take a beating and will break apart if it’s not tightly held together, as in a little ball of popcorn. Many other kettle corn makers use this variety. We here at Velma’s use the movie theatre style “butterfly” popcorn from ACT II. Two reasons; I can find it easily at SAM’s club and it’s supposed to taste better. The concession guy appears in front of my tent wielding a 50 lb. bag of Pop Weaver mushroom style popcorn. I’m very paranoid about changing anything in my recipe ’cause people go nuts over my kettle corn as it is. I buy and bag and figure “what the hell, let’s see how this crap stacks up.”
I popped up a few batches with the exact same proportions as a I usually use in my recipe. You’ll notice that the kernels look exactly the same before you pop them. No big surprise here. (Click on the pictures to get a larger image.)
Well the stuff looks interesting. There wasn’t as many corner bits flaking off as I was cooling and stirring it in the bin. Take a look at the sides of this website to compare what I now pop to this. 
Thing is, it didn’t pop to the same volume as my regular “butterfly” kettle corn. I would guess about 1 bag short than the usual load.
We started doing taste tests with a few of the customers. We called the Pop Weaver stuff “brand X”. Some of the comments I got back were my original butterfly style was more crunchy. A couple of people requested some of the mushroom style bags we made. I’ll be giving some of these new bags to some of my kettle corn connoisseur friends and see what they think. I’ll keep everyone posted.
