Sharp Cheddar Popcorn with Homemade Cheese Powder

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

Neon-orange bagged cheddar popcorn gets its cling from powdered cheese — so we make our own. Real sharp cheddar is dried low and slow in the oven until brittle, then ground with milk powder and mustard into a fine, tangy dust that sticks to every kernel. Stovetop popcorn goes into a paper bag with clarified butter and a heavy dusting, and you shake. It tastes like the good stuff, only sharper, saltier and actually made of cheese.

Ingredients

• 6 oz extra-sharp yellow cheddar, finely grated
• 3 tbsp nonfat dry milk powder
• 2 tsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 3/4 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp citric acid or 1/2 tsp powdered buttermilk (optional, for tang)

• 1/2 cup popcorn kernels
• 3 tbsp refined coconut oil or other neutral oil
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 200°F (95°C) and line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment. Grate the cheddar on the small holes of a box grater — fine shreds dry fastest — and scatter it in a thin, even layer over the parchment, breaking up any clumps with your fingers.
2. Dry the cheese in the oven for 60 to 75 minutes, stirring and re-spreading it every 20 minutes, until it looks like dry orange crumbs and no strand feels flexible or greasy. Some oil will pool; that's normal. Slide the parchment onto a rack and cool completely, about 15 minutes — the cheese must be brittle and snap between your fingers before grinding.
3. Blot the cooled cheese crumbs with a paper towel to lift off surface oil. Transfer to a spice grinder or small food processor along with the dry milk powder, nutritional yeast, mustard powder, paprika, salt, cayenne and citric acid if using. Pulse in 5-second bursts, scraping down between bursts, for about 1 minute total, until you have a fine, uniform powder. Sift through a fine-mesh strainer and re-grind any coarse bits. You should have about 3/4 cup of cheese powder.
4. Clarify the butter: melt it in a small saucepan over low heat without stirring, 3 to 4 minutes. Skim the white foam off the top and pour the clear golden fat into a small bowl, leaving the milky sediment behind. Discard the sediment — pure butterfat carries the powder without making the popcorn soggy.
5. Pop the corn: put the coconut oil and 3 kernels in a 6-quart pot over medium-high heat, cover, and wait for all 3 test kernels to pop, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the remaining kernels in an even layer, cover, count to 30 off the heat, then return to medium-high.
6. Cook, sliding the pot back and forth across the burner every 15 seconds with the lid cracked a fingerwidth to let steam escape, 2 to 4 minutes, until popping slows to about 2 seconds between pops. Immediately dump the popcorn into a large paper grocery bag or a very large bowl, leaving unpopped kernels in the pot.
7. Drizzle the warm clarified butter over the popcorn in three additions, tossing or shaking the closed bag hard between each so the fat coats broadly rather than soaking a few pieces.
8. Add 1/3 cup of the cheese powder, fold the bag shut and shake vigorously for 20 seconds. Open, taste, and add more powder a tablespoon at a time, shaking after each, until the popcorn is heavily coated and unmistakably sharp. Serve within an hour, while it is still warm and crisp.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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