Chocolate Popcorn Cookies

The kids love meeting up with their friends and I love it when the kids meet up with their friends. It generally means a calmer afternoon when they are all playing and I get a hot drink which is actually still hot or maybe even 2 if all the kids are happy. I love it even more when I don’t have to host. Don’t get me wrong, we do invite people to our house, but the organisation it requires for me to have enough of our chaos tidied away stresses me out somewhat. To balance out my reluctance to host playdates, we never turn up empty handed. This means cake, or biscuits or sometimes even both! For our most recent playdate I went armed with these Chocolate Popcorn Cookies. Note to the wise though, next time, don’t place them in a backpack and jog alongside the four year old who is gaining confidence on her bike without stabilisers. When we arrived, most of the cookies were broken. This did reduce my guilt at eating cookie pieces as I didn’t eat a single cookie at once!

A cookie or two a day keeps the grumps away!

These cookies were an experiment. Finch has inherited his mum and dad’s love of the chocolate/coconut combination. Unfortunately, the playdate hosts disagree so I wouldn’t allow him to add desiccated coconut to the cookies. To placate my gingernutter I suggested we added some of the leftover popcorn from our movie night the evening before. This suggestion was met with immediate enthusiasm and as a result I cannot say for sure how much popcorn we actually added… Oh well! This recipe is versatile and can easily be made vegan by using vegan spread and chocolate. We used golden syrup as it was what we had in the house, but maple syrup would work just as well.

To make Chocolate Popcorn Cookies you will need:

  • 250g margarine/dairy free butter
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 2tsp vanilla extract
  • 1tbsp golden syrup/maple syrup
  • 300g plain flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • 100g chocolate chips
  • 1.5 cups of plain popcorn
  • 1/2-1tsp salt

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 160°c fan and line 3-4 baking sheets with parchment or silicone baking mats.
  2. Put the margarine, butter, sugar, vanilla extract and golden syrup in a large bowl and mix with electric beaters until fully creamed together.
  3. Add the flour, baking powder and salt (if you want a stronger sweet/salty taste add the full tsp of salt) and slowly mix together to form a dough.
  4. Add the chocolate chips and popcorn and gently combine.
  5. Put tablespoon-sized amounts on to the baking trays and cook each tray for 12-15 minutes in the oven until golden. We put 6 on each tray to ensure they didn’t spread into each other.
  6. Leave to cool on the rack for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to fully cool.

In my mind these cookies are a perfect accompaniment to a lovely cup of coffee. The kids enjoyed them while running around with their friends. I am currently fighting the urge to go and make more popcorn to make another batch…

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