Just a helpful hint you will love that I just discovered recently! Actually, I stumbled on this accidently last summer making Rice Krispy Squares (my boys LOVE these, and they are excellent to take to soccer games for everyone!). They are super-simple to make, but pressing them into the pan was always a sticky mess, and the buttered utensil or hands idea never worked very well for me.
What I did that worked AMAZINGLY well was using a bit of water on my hands instead of butter. Absolutely no stick. So, when we were making popcorn balls last nite, the recipe said to oil up your hands and form the balls, we tried water instead and it worked MUCH better. I just put a little bowl of water on the table where we were making the popcorn balls, and once in awhile you just dip your fingertips into the bowl, and rub your hands together like you would if it were butter, and you have no problem at all with the goopy stuff sticking to your hands.
In case you were wondering what recipe we used for the popcorn balls, it was the same one you use for rice krispy squares (1/2 stick butter, bag of marshmallows, dash of vanilla), but used popcorn instead of rice krispys. We found we needed more popcorn than it called for, so instead of 9 cups of popcorn, we put in more like 12 cups. It’s not as tasty as traditional popcorn balls, but much easier to make!
While the formed popcorn balls were still warm, we stuck a mini candy cane in the top for an ornament ‘hanger’, and pressed in sliced up gumdrops and red licorice strings to decorate them. They turned out really cute, but the kids had the most fun decorating them! I’ll try to get a picture posted of the results soon, that is, if they don’t all get eaten first!
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