Getting Ready to Pop - Review & Giveaway

 In case you haven't heard yet, I'm pregnant and am due to 'pop' in early August. What better way to celebrate than with a giveaway!

The wonderful people at Kambrook agreed and have sent me a Little Chefs Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker to play with and you can win one too!

First let me tell you how wonderful it is :-)

This little unit is quite compact & stores easily in my tiny kitchen. You can melt butter (although my attempts have been a little unsuccessful, more on that later) in the measuring cup while you pop your corn. It has a switch on the unit itself to turn on & off so you don't have to lean over a warm machine to switch off at the wall (like some toastie makers) For all the whizzing of corn kernels around the unit, it is actually quite quiet. No louder than my vacuum cleaner & certainly no louder than my blender when making an ice-based smoothie.

This isn't really a multi-functional unit, it does one job & it does it well!

Popcorn in general is a great filling snack, and when served without being smothered in butter & salt is actually relatively healthy.

According to the nutrition information on the back of the Basils brand Popping Corn I use (purchased from the local supermarket, nothing too fancy here!) per 100g, microwaved (no added fat) you're looking at:
Energy = 1485kj
Protein = 12.0g
Fat - total = 4.2 g

Fat - saturated = 0.6g
Carbohydrate - total = 55.8g
Carbohydrate - sugars = 0.5g
Sodium = 4.0mg

I compared this to the wonderful keyring 'cheat sheet' I received from RHealth a few years ago with a Nutrition Information Panel Pocket Guide on one side. RHealth recommend keeping (per 100g):
total fat less than 3g, and avoid more than 10
saturated fat less than 1.5g, avoid more than 3g

Popcorn Conversion

Sugar less than 5g, avoid more than 15g
Sodium less than 120mg, avoid more than 400mg
Fibre more than 8g, avoid less than 3g

Now consider how much popped corn is in 100g! The packet suggests a serving size of 75g (between 1/3-1/4 cup unpopped). That pops to be roughly 8 cups!! (or 2L) To give you an idea, a movie sized 'Small' popcorn is around 20g, or 3 cups. According to the supplier of the boxes, a Bucket size holds around 75g.

8 cups in a Bucket

So I think we can safely call plain air popped corn a healthy snack. . . . But I do love a bit extra flavour so let's see what else we can do!

There are so many recipes out there that range from simple butter & salt combos to full on baking (savoury & sweet) that feature popcorn. I've collected a little Pinterest board & will continue to add to it as I find more wonderful inspiration. You can check it out here. And of course there's always the recipes in the instruction manual, and the recipe search by appliance feature on the Kambrook blog A Perfect Pantry.

8 Cups in a Bucket

On a side note it is a fantastic page, very well indexed, with great recipes & lots of inspiration. I do particularly like the recipe search by appliance feature. . . can you tell? Oh, and they do run regular giveaways & cook book reviews.

Back on track, with so many recipes out there, some calling for popped corn, others for unpopped, I did struggle to find a popped/unpopped conversion chart - so I made one of my own. Please feel free to Pin & share it!

At first I wasn't sure what to make, so like most
things, I started with the basics. Popped corn with butter & salt. Then I tried a few other salts & spices. I'll go into that in a bit more detail in a later post, so do make sure you keep checking back this month ;-)

4 cups in a Regular

After that, my sister suggested sprinkling with icing sugar instead of salt. This got me thinking about popcorn as a sweet dish. I always loved caramel popcorn & honey popcorn as a child, so why did I not think of that? (Let's blame the baby ^-^) So many doors opened and I stepped through most of them! I'm going to leave a teaser & say you'll just have to come back to check out the details on my experiments.

Loving:

• 
  

• Such a quick, healthy & versatile snack
• Easy store
• Easy clean
• Melt your butter (or coconut oil) as you pop!

Loving a little less, but liveable:

• I did have a few problems getting my butter to melt, but in all honesty I was probably a bit greedy & loaded too much in. It's recommended you use room temperature butter in a single layer. If it sin't completely melted, mixing it through your warm popcorn will finish the job. Once I discovered spray oils as an alternative, and melting coconut oil, there was no looking back - for me anyway. Hubby still likes his butter!
• While it's no noisier than a blender or vacuum cleaner, I can't see me popping any corn with a sleeping newborn nearby, so I'm just going to have to pop in advance & store in an air tight container. When I do this, I like to season as I serve rather than during storage.

Overall:

I'd only ever seen popcorn as a movie or circus treat. Loaded with butter & salt. Now I see that it is quite healthy when left 'au naturale' and extremely tasty once you start to experiment with flavours & textures. I can definitely see this appliance staying in our kitchen & being used regularly.

Now for the fun bit! You can win a Kambrook Little Chefs Flutter Butter Popcorn Maker of your own! Simply follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter form below.

• As per Terms & Conditions entrantsmust be subscribed to at least one of Loving Lunches' social media or email updates. It is highly recommended that the email address you enter the give-away with matches the email address/ID you follow with, otherwise your entry can be difficult to verify.
• If the winner does not reply to claim their prize within two (2) working days, they will forfeit and a new winner drawn.
• Full Terms & Contidions can be found HERE

Note - Open to Australian residents 18years & over (excluding NSW) only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post and no monetary compensation was provided nor offered. Tis post was written for Loving Lunches & Kambrook who generously provided the prize/prizes for this competition as well as a complimentary 'Little Chefs Flutter Butter' for review. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the review item/s.