Sorghum Treats

Popcorn Bars

Popcorn balls made with real sorghum are just about my favorite sweet. Dad occasionally makes them but it seems to take a while to form the popcorn mixture into balls and he doesn’t make them often. I decided that I would try to make them in a way that is easier to make and easier to eat, so I make them into bars like Krispy treats.

Last week Dad, Mom, and I had traveled to Muddy Pond and bought us some Muddy Pond sorghum. On Wednesday, I was visiting with them and since we didn’t have to worry about hoardin’ our sorghum, we decided to make a batch of popcorn bars.

We made a big batch of them and I thought that I would share the process in case anyone likes sorghum and is interested.

Mom popped the corn. She popped four separate batches using a nearly full yogurt cup of corn each time. Dad sifted through the corn after it was popped to get out any unpopped or partially popped grains. We gotta take care of our teeth!

Put the popped corn into three large containers, you need stirring room, and set them aside. Also, get two to three shallow cooking sheets ready for the popcorn bar mixture by spraying with cooking spray. I place a piece of wax paper on the sprayed surface so that the paper doesn’t stick to the bar mixture too. 

After the corn was popped, I mixed equal parts or 2 cups each of brown sugar and sorghum in a good-sized saucepan. Use a bigger pan than you think you need because it will expand quite a bit. I heated the mixture over medium heat stirring constantly until I could drop a bit of it into a cup of cold water and it stayed together in a sticky mass. Then I took it off the heat. I didn’t time it but it was probably about five-plus minutes.

After I remove it from the heat, I add a teaspoon full of soda into the sorghum/brown sugar mixture and stir it in well. This is when the mixture expands quite a bit. Then I poured the mixture over the three mixing pans with corn. At this time, Mom, Dad, and I each stirred the sorghum into the popcorn until it was mixed well. 

Next, I took the greased wax paper up and poured some of the mixture into each of the waitin’ pans. I put the wax paper on top of the popcorn mixture and packed it down into the pan good. Dad buttered his hands and kept some out to make him a huge popcorn ball to eat. He sure looked happy when he ate it too!

                                                      Dad enjoying his popcorn ball.