Movie Theater Popcorn At Home - Results

 A while back, I shared a video which claimed to have cracked the code on movie theater popcorn at home and I teased that I would try the experiment myself. I have done so and can now report back from the field.

First off, using Amazon and area grocery stores I was able to obtain the recommended elements. Here is my own photo as proof.

The Results

It works. The result tastes exactly like movie theater popcorn in my opinion. In order to be authoritative, I would like to have tried other methods and recipes to determine a ranking but I have not done that so all I can say is this is as authentically movie theater popcorn as I can imagine any popcorn being.

Criticisms and Warnings

Jeers to the original video for not giving ingredient measurements. Yes, everyone is going to need to figure it out according to their own tastes but that's going to happen anyway, you might as well give a starting point. You can keep adding more coconut oil until it's enough, so that's easy, but I overdid the Flavacol and paid the price. So for that I will pass on to you: 1/3 to 1/2 of a tablespoon.

The video mentions using 4 test kernels and waiting until all 4 have popped before adding the rest. It's a small moment in the video but a very important point: wait until all 4 have popped. I lifted the lid and got a kernel pop as I was working with it. The result was a spray pattern of oil on the wall and myself and probably other places that I just haven't found yet. Wait until all 4 have popped.

Other Notes

Part of the movie theater experience is the fake butter chemicals. For the video, I believe that's the "Popping and Topping Oil" that is covered briefly. I love the fake butter chemicals and would have liked to evaluate that as well but here my completionist tendencies butted head-on against my sense of trying not to eat like an absolute madman and I excluded that aspect as overkill. A future consideration perhaps; if you try it, you  let me know.

One of the ingredients that he recommends (and I bought) was the "Movie Theater Butter Salt." That seems unnecessary to me. It's salt and the Flavacol is salt, so why both? Well, you might find at the end it needs more salt, but in that case, why not add more Flavacol? I say you can exclude this item but there may be a nuance I'm missing. Dunno.

What Is This Stuff?

Are you like me, are you horrified by a giant orange vat and a substance called Flavacol? What are we talking about here? Well, here are the ingredients.

Snappy Popcorn Colored Coconut Oil - Coconut oil and beta carotene. So that's actually, surprisingly, not horrifying.

Flavacol - Salt, natural flavors, artificial flavors, dyes. Hmm, so that's not actually horrifying either.

Popping and Topping Oil - Soybean oil, artificial flavor, beta carotene - Don't need more seed oils but not horrifying in the grand scheme of things.

Surprising result! Did not expect that.