Memory Monday: Popcorn Balls

my great-great aunt

POPCORN BALLS

Fall is here!!! (Well almost.) That means pumpkin spiced muffins, pumpkins spiced lattes, pumpkin spiced everything. And popcorn balls!!! Yeah!!! Don’t you just love those sticky balls of caramel and popcorn goodness, especially if peanuts have been added?

I found a recipe in a cookbook dated 1913, titled Things Mother Used to Make. Here is the recipe:

Pop Corn Balls (very old recipe)

1 Cupful of Molasses

Piece of Butter, half the size of an Egg

Boil together until it strings and then stir in a pinch of soda. Put this over a quart dish full of popped corn. When cool enough to handle squeeze into balls the size of an orange.

I wonder if my great-aunt (pictured above) ever made popcorn balls for her children and my father (He spent a year with them when he was in high school after his father married for the second time—my grandmother passed away when my father was nine years old.) If she did make them, I wonder if her recipe was anything like the one above or if she used a different kind of sugar/sweetener.

Do you like/love popcorn balls? Have you ever made them?