Game Day Fruity Glazed Popcorn

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Game Day Glazed Popcorn

Originally Posted September 2008. Updated 1/7/2021

Fruity Glazed popcorn was the first recipe I ever had published, back when I was a kid (Community fundraising cook book, iirc)!

I used to make this for bake sales in my front yard, as gifts, and whatever.

Pineapple, lime, and grape (separate, or together!) were always my favourites, as a kid... though pineapple Jello can be more difficult to find, these days.

Anyway, given the long history with this recipe, I guess it was only appropriate that glazed popcorn was also the first recipe I posted on this blog, way back in September 2008!

This is a ridiculously easy recipe to make, and only takes about 10 minutes per flavor.

Game Day Popcorn

While a single batch of this popcorn is a ton of fun - and super tasty - on its own, doubling the batch while using 2 different colors?

Awesome - and a fun way to bring your favourite team's colours into your menu, this football season.

This would make a great snack food for any Grey Cup party or Super Bowl party - just customize your colours/flavours specific to your team / party theme.

Between the flavors / colors of Jello available, & the huge variety of gel food colors available, you can totally customize the flavors and colors to match any sports team out there.

Special Occasion Themed Popcorn

Not so into sports?

Consider using your wedding colors for bridal shower favors ... or light colors for baby showers!

Orange popcorn can be combined with ANY flavor - dyed black - for Halloween popcorn, and festive holiday popcorn could be made with cherry and lime Jello! The possibilities are endless!

How to Make Different Colours of Popcorn

For many of the colours you could want, obtaining those colours is pretty easy - just use the appropriate colour of jello.

Sometimes, a colour isn’t available in Jello, or that particular flavour may not be in your area / easy to find. So, here’s a bit of guide on how to achieve various colours:

Popcorn Glaze Colour Guide

Red - Start with a red Jello, or use gel colour to overwhelm an Orange or Yellow Jello flavour.

Orange - Start with orange Jello, or use orange food colouring to tint a Yellow Jello flavour.

Yellow - Start with a Yellow Jello flavour, use yellow, red, or orange food colouring (VERY sparingly!) To achieve the type of yellow you’re looking for. (Eg: a small amount of orange or brown can bring you closer to “athletic gold” colour)

Green - Lime Jello. If that’s not available, start with a yellow flavour and add green food colouring.

Blue - Start with Berry Blue Jello, use blue food colouring to adjust the colour to what you need, if necessary. If blue is not available, you can start with green and just overwhelm it with blue gel colouring.

Purple - Start with Grape Jello, use red or blue food colouring to obtain the type of purple you’re looking for, if necessary. If grape isn’t available, add blue colouring to a Red flavour of Jello

Black - Start with any flavour of Jello, add black food colouring. It’s dark enough that it’ll blacken any colour of Jello you start with, if you use enough.

Brown - Start with an Orange or Yellow Jello flavour, add brown food colouring.

Pink - Use a Red Jello flavour, and white food colouring to “pastel” it. You can adjust the type of pink by adding pink food colouring after it’s been suitably lightened.

Pastel or Opaque Glaze

If you want your glaze to be opaque - that is, not a sheer, see-through candy - use a few drops of WHITE gel food colouring - I recommend Americolor White Gel Paste .

You can add this white gel to any Jello flavour to make it opaque and pastel (depending on how much you use), or just creamy medium-tone opaque colours using this technique.

A Note on Food Colouring

Whenever I’m using food colouring, I prefer to use a nice quality gel based colour, such as Americolor (what I used when I was in the USA), or ChefMaster (Which is the option more readily available here!).

The liquid food colouring you can buy in grocery stores will work, but it’s not as concentrated, and not available in as many colours.

When using food colouring in your popcorn glaze, tint it AFTER removing the Jello mixture from the heat, immediately before pouring it on your popcorn.

A Note on Colour Vibrance

For this batch of fruity glazed popcorn, I used grape and lemon Jello flavors.

While the lemon was vibrant enough on its own, I find that the darker colors need a little more “oomph”.

I highly recommend adding a few drops of gel food coloring. To achieve this depth of color, I used a few drops of Americolor’s “Regal Purple”. Perfect!