In my adventures into Fourth of July snacks this year, I’ve added popcorn balls to my repertoire. This is a relatively simple red, white, and blue dessert to make. It would definitely be fun with a group, like family or friends. The ingredients are minimal and it follows a very familiar recipe, the recipe for Rice Krispies! (But with popcorn, and Pop Rocks). Anyways, read on for the full tutorial on how to make popcorn balls for Fourth of July.
What You’ll Need for Your Red, White and Blue Popcorn Ball
- Popcorn, popped
- Marshmallows
- Butter
- Pop Rocks
- Sprinkles or Icing, optional
- Big saucepan
- Wax Paper
- Plate
Good old regular popcorn works great for this recipe. Go ahead an pre-pop that bag to have your popcorn ready. No need for it to be hot or warm when you make this recipe. Your marshmallow mix will take care of that!
I’m not too picky about marshmallows either! Big, small, whatever works. I will tell you smaller ones melt quicker…..you have good old Chemistry for that. (Smaller surface area = quicker melting. I’m a nerd, you can say it. I was a chem major back in the day). Anyways, back to marshmallows! No prep needed other than buying and opening the bag….my kind of prep work.
The rest of the materials, you just want to have handy.
How to Make Your Popcorn Balls
So, lets start by making our butter marshmallow mixture. You want to melt some butter and marshmallows in a saucepan. Make sure it’s a big saucepan because we are going to add our popcorn to this mixture. How much of each that you use depends on how much popcorn you’re mixing and how marshmallowy you want it!
I usually go with about a third of a stick of butter and a healthy portion of marshmallows, like half a bag (to do this with a whole bag of popcorn). It’s up to you! You may want to do it a little at a time and start small too.
Once your butter and marshmallow mixture is thickened and completely melted, stir in your pre-popped popcorn. Start slow, a little at a time. You’re going to want to be efficient because your mixture will start to harden up as you take it away from the heat. When the popcorn is evenly distributed through the marshmallow mix, start dumping in and mixing in your Pop Rocks!
Once the popcorn is covered, we are going to make our popcorn balls. You can use gloves if you have them. I would suggest spraying them with some non-stick because melted marshmallows are sticky!! I use PAM spray on my hands for the rolling of the popcorn balls. This works too. Now, this is the part of finding the happy medium. This mixture is going to be hot. So, be careful when you’re forming your balls! Let it cool a bit, but not so much that it’s hardened.
Roll the popcorn into a ball shaped and set on the pre-buttered/sprayed wax paper. (Again, the stickage). Make your popcorn balls as big or small as you want, or even mix it up! No need to make identical sizes. You can finish off these treats by adding some sprinkles if you want or drizzling icing across the top. Have fun and play with it! (Not literally….well maybe)!
You can see the full tutorial in action here:
Wrap Up
Well, now that you’ve busted out the super fun red white and blue dessert popping popcorn ball for your Fourth of July party, check out some other fun patriotic party ideas. You can see a bunch in the posts listed below. For additional inspiration, check out my Pinterest Boards for great party ideas! Happy popping!
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