Hoosier Hill Farm Mushroom Popcorn, 4LB (Pack of 1)

For typical popcorn eating, the common kernels found at the grocery store are great. Pop it, and salt or season it how you like. However, when you want to coat the popped corn with something, regular popcorn’s random and flailing structure falls apart. Literally. Shards of popcorn break off and you get a lot of small popcorn fragment that gets mixed in with the coating or sauce. Not bad to eat, but not the most attractive or presentable looking popcorn you can make. This is where mushroom popcorn excels, and it's hard to find in most grocery stores.Mushroom popcorn kernels pop in a more uniform, more round shape, which makes coating it easier, and causes much less fragmentation of the popped corn when mixing. I bought this container of Hoosier Farms mushroom popcorn and it arrived in excellent condition. I made a small batch, 1/8 cup of kernels, to test how it popped, and it popped wonderfully.The key to well made popcorn of any type is getting the oil to a proper temperature before adding the kernels. The oil needs to get very hot, so a high smoke point oil needs to be used. I use refined coconut oil and use a medium-high temperature stovetop burner. Any high temperature (smoke point) oil will work. You will read that a good ratio by volume, of oil to kernels, is one part oil to three parts kernels, but that’s just a guideline. It really depends on the pot you are going to use.Because of the high temperature involved, a stainless steel instead of a non-stick coated pot is recommended. A thick or heavy bottom pot is also highly recommended, as is a well fitting lid. You only want the kernels to form a single layer, one kernel high, on the bottom of the pot, and only use enough oil to completely cover the bottom of the pot. Just enough oil to do that. You don’t want to add so much oil that the kernels are swimming or covered in it.The easiest way to figure out the oil to kernels ratio that is best for your pot when making a full batch, is to take the pot when it’s cold, and pour in kernels until they are one layer deep. Then pour them out of the pot into a holding container. Then add your oil to where is just covers the bottom of the pot. Not too much oil, keeping it to no more than 1/8 inch, or 2-3 millimeters.Once you have that figured out, bring the oil up to a high temperature, and add two or three popcorn kernels and loosely put on the lid. When two of the three kernels pop, add the remaining kernels, put the lid on securely, and start shaking the pot on the burner in a back and forth and in a circular motion.You can use a kitchen rag or oven mitts to help you ensure that the lid stays on the pot while doing the shaking. All the kernels that are going to pop will pop in just a couple minutes if the oil is hot enough. Once the popping sound dies down to where a few seconds pass with only the occasional pop, remove the pot from the burner and turn the burner off. You don’t want to burn the popcorn, and not every kernel will pop with any kind of popcorn.Once popped, I dump the popcorn out onto a rack in a rimmed half-sheet pan. Doing this allows the popcorn to steam out, and also causes any unpopped kernels and small popcorn fragments to fall through the rack to the tray. It’s an easy and effective way to strain out the hard and really small stuff that results from popping. Stuff you really don't want to eat or injure your teeth with.In the photos you can see the mushroom popcorn popped. Some photos show it plain, and some show it coated with my homemade salted caramel glaze. I popped a full cup of mushroom kernels in batches, yielding about 35 cups of popped corn.I make salted caramel popcorn for the holidays, and mushroom popcorn is a must. Half of this batch was just glazed popcorn, and to the other half I added dry roasted peanuts to the popcorn before adding the salted caramel sauce. It seems like a lot of popcorn, but it all gets eaten rather quickly. It’s a crowd pleaser and holiday and anytime party favorite.

Edited to say that subsequent popping batches were actually way way more mushroom popcorn. The first batch had hardly any, but now it is exactly what I’d hoped for. Guessing about 90% mushroom. I have no idea why this happened, but I’m glad I tried again.Original post - This popped well and tasted good. BUT, there was very little mushroom popcorn in the mix. In fact, it looked just about the same as the jolly time from the grocery store. Mostly all butterfly popcorn. I wanted it for caramel corn, so I’m disappointed and I won’t buy this again.

I tried this in two different poppers operating on different principles. I got moderately good results in one, dismal in the other. However, by departing from the instructions I was able to get better results.I got good (not great) results with a Presto 04830 PowerPop Microwave Multi-Popper. This produced large popped kernals, half or more with mushroom form. The texture was on the soft side and the flavor was nothing special. There were many hull fragments.Results with a Elite Gourmet Automatic Stirring Popcorn Maker initially were truly dismal. Popping according to the Elite's instructions produced a very large proportion of unpopped and partly-popped old maids. The texture and flavor of the few fully-popped kernals was somewhat better than with the Presto, but still not great.Hoosier Hill doesn't stand behind their product so I couldn't simply send it back. After thinking about it for a while I decided to experiment. After several tries I found that I could get good results with the Elite if I used a good deal more oil than the instructions call for, enough to provide a good layer on the hot plate. Then I put just a very few kernals on the plate and turn it on, waiting a few minutes for the kernals to pop, signaling that the oil is hot. Then I turn it off, remove the lid, pour 1/4 to 1/3 cup of kernals on, replace the lid, and turn it back on, all as quickly as possible. This produces fewer old maids and a large proportion of mushroom kernals, with a lot of hulls.It should not be necessary for the customer to find how to pop the corn by trial and error. I won't soon buy anything else from Hoosier Hill.

I read some reviews and it left me concerned, but I found using a $20 popper gives you perfect popcorn. Been trying to find that right popcorn for caramel popcorn and now I have it.

This is just overpriced, stale, regular popcorn. It does not pop up in the ball shape that is advertised as the standard for “mushroom popcorn.” Instead, most of the kernels popped into the irregular, jagged shapes typical of butterfly popcorn. The taste was bland, and overall it felt like a stale, low-quality product trying to pass itself off as premium. Definitely not worth the price!

This popcorn popped in large kernels and tastes good, but it is a little tough. We cooked it in a PAN over open flame. I'm not sure if we would have gotten better results in an air popper.