Scrolling through Pinterest, looking for gluten-free recipe ideas, I came across a pin for s’mores popcorn. Intrigued, I immediately clicked and decided to try it out. After all, popcorn is basically one of my main food groups, and the more ways I can make it, the better!
This post is a recipe review of AllergyAwesomeness’s Top 8 Free Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free S’mores Popcorn.
This isn’t the easiest recipe.
At least, nothing that involves melting marshmallows is considered ‘easy’ in my book. I don’t think my measurements were entirely accurate either, which made getting the right ratios more difficult. Like with the chocolate chip mug cookie I made earlier this semester, the recipe served more as a set of guidelines.
I didn’t want to make 10 cups of popcorn, like the recipe called for, so I tried to adapt the rest of the recipe accordingly. This meant using about a quarter of my box of s’moreables graham crackers, and more like somewhere between 1-1 1/2 cups of mini marshmallows. Unfortunately, my eyeballing of the amount of popcorn I made didn’t go to plan, and I ended up with more than I thought I would. When it came to the extra marshmallows and chocolate chip toppings at the end of the recipe, I was more generous.
You can adapt it to your dietary restrictions.
The version I ended up making was gluten-free and dairy-free, but this could easily be made vegan or to accommodate other allergies. Listed below are my favorite allergy-friendly versions of the ingredients I used!
- Kinnikinnick s’moreables as graham crackers (a staple in my pantry for years)
- Enjoy Life Dark Chocolate Morsels
- Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread
- Orville Redenbacher’s Original Gourmet White Popping Kernels
Stirring the ingredients together was harder than I anticipated.
It made me feel as though I was destroying all of the popcorn, which is sort of what happened. There were more little pieces of popcorn that broke off than I would have preferred, but it stuck in with the marshmallows well, which made consumption less messy!
Ultimately, the mixture didn’t come together for me as it felt like it should’ve, and the consistency of the melted marshmallow had me worried that I was making a popcorn brittle more than anything – which was not the goal. It looked and acted more like caramel than the gooey marshmallow in the recipe photos appeared to be.
To fix this, after adding additional marshmallows and chocolate chips when I was done following the recipe, I set the oven to 350 degrees and baked the popcorn on the baking sheet for about five minutes. This melted the chocolate, ballooned the new mini marshmallows up giving a slightly toasty effect, and helped everything stick together. It was just what was needed to salvage my s’mores popcorn!
Would I make this recipe again?
Probably as a treat or for an event, but I don’t think I would make this just as a snack or treat for myself. It tasted better than I anticipated, but I still ended up making more than I had planned to. Next time, I would want to try the recipe as written and see how that goes.
