In one of my last posts, I had mentioned developing my own honey butter recipe, after sampling some of the storied chips. Because, frankly, I don’t get the hype.

Please don’t leave me, darling! I haven’t been able to bring myself to start a new route in
Mystic Messenger because of this dumb dumb idiot head and the blasted Reset Theory!

I mean, they’re tasty. They’re definitely unique. But as I mindlessly munched, I kept feeling like something was missing. And then I came across this:

Oiji NYC’s honey butter chips use cayenne pepper!

Oh yeah, heat! Uncompromising amounts of heat! I will never understand the decision to use parsley as part of the chip flavoring instead of pepper. Sweet, salty, spicy is my Holy Trinity, so I set about to right the wrongs of the Honey Butter Chip, with a little help from Brian Kim and Tae Kyung Ku, of course.

Now, round up your cast:

If you can substitute gochugaru, do so. I ended up using gochugaru for the second batch
and it was a much friendlier, more edible snack (not so much a challenge – although can you
imagine a Carolina Reaper honey butter popcorn/chip!? OH, SEVEN…)

Whoops, I missed another ingredient:

Sorry about that, Brown Sugar! You might find that your popcorn comes out a little uneven – more salt or spice than sweet. If that happens, drop in a few clumps of brown sugar to deepen and sweeten.

First, pop your corn according to manufacturer instructions. I usually pop in my beloved Lodge dutch oven. This this is a workhorse and especially well suited for crushing the skulls of your enemies cooking! I mean cooking!

No, it’s not Le Creuset. If I could afford Le Creuset, I wouldn’t be writing blog posts for donations.

Remember to add a liberal amount of oil at the bottom of the pot, lest your popcorn burn (which mine almost always does, but anyway).

Next, plop the following into a pot on low heat:

• Butter
• Honey
• Pepper: Again, I used a mix of cayenne and gochugaru. This was a mistake (a very tasty mistake, but the subsequent heartburn has made it hard to swallow. On the next batch, I “picked a pepper,” stuck with it, and the results were much, much better).
• Sugar (if needed)
• Salt

Melt all the ingredients until they form a glaze. Keep tasting and adjusting, you might need to bring up the heat, the sweet and/or the salt.

When the popcorn is burnt done, mix in your glaze. Unlike the honey butter chips, it will stick more like kettle corn than a powder. You could even form little popcorn balls, if you prefer. I just plopped them in a bowl, as shown.

Even though this was a first draft, and even though they came out blisteringly hot, PF and I Could. Not. Stop. Eating. Them. …A fact I somewhat regret as I contemplate calling out sick and chugging Mylanta. As with all of these recipes, you do you, boo. The bones of the recipe are good and the flavor is addictive. Subsequent attempts have been extremely successful (read; the only snack food we’ve consumed for a week). Feel free to experiment and let me know in the comments how it turned out for you!

In the meantime

*sigh* Oh, Seven. You told me it was too dangerous and I didn’t listen.