Golden Gaytime Popcorn Copycat

Golden Gaytime Popcorn

Popcorn and candy lovers alike were in a tizzy of excitement with Golden Gaytime Popcorn was first released. Yours truly included. The chatter between closet popcorn-loving friends, however, quickly moved from “Far out, this is crazy good!” to “OMG can you believe it’s so expensive”?? Named as such because it’s a popcorn version of a beloved Australian’s ice cream called Golden Gaytime, one packet of the Gaytime popcorn is $5.75 for 100g (3.5 oz). A small bag with just 2 cups of Gaytime popcorn. I can’t afford to feed my addiction!! Which, of course, lead to what was affectionately dubbed The Gaytime Popcorn Project – a homemade version I was confident I could create for 80% cheaper. How’d I do? My report card is at the bottom of the post!

Store-bought Golden Gaytime popcorn

A quick inspection of the ingredients label was all I needed to come up with a copycat recipe. It’s really just caramel popcorn with a drizzle of chocolate and sprinkling of biscuit crumbs. However, my homemade Gaytime Popcorn is far more generous on the chocolate drizzling (oh, why not? 😇). And you won’t break the bank! Hmm, I did a “sprinkling of biscuit crumbs”, didn’t I. But it looks more like I’m assertively throwing biscuit crumbs in the photo below. You want biscuit crumbs? Here’s your biscuit crumbs!!! 😂

Ingredients you need

Here’s what you need to make this. The first part covers the caramel popcorn, then the second part covers the chocolate drizzle and biscuit crumbs.

Caramel popcorn ingredients

Here’s what you need for the caramel popcorn:

Chocolate drizzle and biscuit crumbs

For the chocolate drizzle and biscuit crumbs, you just need chocolate suitable for melting and some plain biscuits to crush up then sprinkle on the popcorn. Glucose is a perfect substitute for corn syrup which is available in Australian supermarkets (baking aisle, clear thick syrup with honey consistency). Just a little harder to measure out because it’s so thick. However, the popcorn needs to be baked for 15 minutes longer to make sure the caramel coating dries out and becomes crisp. This is because glucose has slightly higher water content.

Chocolate -You can use a combination of dark and white chocolate, as I have done (like the store-bought Gaytime popcorn mix), or just one or the other.Use a chocolate purchased from the baking aisle rather than eating chocolate. Baking chocolate is purpose-made for melting and cooking with, whereas eating chocolate is actually often designed specifically so it doesn’t melt when warm! I typically use “melts” for melting and chocolate chips for things like chocolate chip cookies as they are designed to hold their shape when cookies are baked.For those of you in the US, semi-sweet chocolate chips is perfect. Plain biscuits – A signature part of Golden Gaytime Popcorn is the sprinkling of crushed biscuits on the popcorn. The ingredients label specifies that it’s vanilla biscuits. Honestly though, any plain sweet biscuits will work just fine!

How to make Golden Gaytime Popcorn

Simply make caramel popcorn then finish with a drizzle of chocolate and sprinkle of biscuit crumbs. It will stay crisp and fresh for at least a week – I’m sure it will last for longer (caramel popcorn lasts for weeks). But every test batch I made mysteriously disappeared before I could finish testing the shelf life!! Use a chocolate purchased from the baking aisle rather than eating chocolate. Baking chocolate is purpose-made for melting and cooking with, whereas eating chocolate is actually often designed specifically so it doesn’t melt when warm! I typically use “melts” for melting and chocolate chips for things like chocolate chip cookies as they are designed to hold their shape when cookies are baked. For those of you in the US, semi-sweet chocolate chips is perfect.

1. Pop popcorn

Pop your popcorn kernels using your method of choice – stove or popcorn maker, if you have one (I do, but for some reason digging it out of the back of the cupboard seems like more effort than cooking the popcorn on the stove). Here’s how to cook popcorn on the stove.

Gaytime the popcorn!

OK, so time to transform our caramel popcorn into Gaytime Popcorn! Here’s how: Add remaining popcorn, elevate off stove to shake and spread corn out evenly. Cover with a lid. REMINDER: If using glucose instead of corn syrup, bake for an extra 15 minutes.

Storage

In theory, Gaytime Popcorn should stay fresh and crisp as long as Caramel Popcorn which has an excellent shelf life of several weeks. Once the chocolate sets – I speed things up by popping the trays in the fridge for 15 minutes – it’s ready to dive in!! Test batches made it to around the 1 week mark successfully before mysteriously disappearing. So I can’t say for sure, but I’m confident it should last for at least 2 weeks. Just make sure it is stored in an airtight container in a cool and dry place. If moisture gets in and/or it’s hot and humid, the caramel coating will get sticky and chewy so it gets stuck in your teeth. This was a jar intended for gifting. It never got gifted. 🤭

REPORT CARD: Homemade is 68% cheaper!!

I boldly stated when I started on the Gaytime Popcorn Project that I believed I could make it for 80% less than store-bought. We’ve run the numbers and the results are in. One batch costs $8.96 to make which equates to 5 packets of store bought Gaytime Popcorn which costs $28.75 ($5.75 per packet). That’s a 68% saving! So, I was 12% off. But still. I would never spend $28.75 for 5 packets of Gaytime. But I would spend $8.96 to make a batch of this any day of the week – and twice for movie night! – Nagi x