Butterkist Caramel

Product name: Butterkist Caramel
Purchase details: £0.89 for a 175g bag (Home Bargains)
Calories: 101 per 25g serving (406 per 100g)
Country of origin: UK

Considering it’s a relatively low calorie snack, I don’t buy popcorn enough. This unusual yellow and burgundy bag caught my eye recently, though, and I was glad it did since it heralded the arrival of a new Butterkist flavour – Caramel. I didn’t expect it to taste much different to toffee popcorn (particularly as it was simply described as ‘caramel flavour toffee popcorn’), but I’ll try anything once...unless it contains fish – bleurgh.

Part of Tangerine Confectionery Ltd, Butterkist is a well-established brand, and I was interested to read a bit more about it on the back of the bag. Founded in America in 1914, it’s been available in UK cinemas since 1938, and it now claims to be ‘the nation’s favourite popcorn’ with a ‘delicious and unique flavour’. Since popcorn is connected with films so much, I did like the way the brand’s logo was styled like the opening credits of a movie, and I was also amused by the concept of a strong man struggling with the weight of a single piece of popcorn. 

On opening the bag, I was greeted with a lovely cinema popcorn smell with a slight sweetness to it. Visually, it was paler in colour than standard toffee popcorn, but it still had a visible coating. The overall appearance was as expected, with similar sized pieces being different shapes, and some being more thickly coated that others (as far as I’m concerned, the shinier and thicker the coating, the better that piece will be!). 

I’d been surprised to see that the ‘sweet caramel flavour’ coating (made using Butterkist’s secret recipe) made up 65% of the product but, thankfully, the popcorn was still light enough to mean I felt like I was getting a lot for the calories. I was doing my fairly typical thing of using up spare calories rather than having 25g portions, but I didn’t feel deprived at all. 

Taste-wise, the flavour was more different than I thought it would be. The popcorn itself was quite buttery and, with the coating, it was obviously sweet too. It wasn’t as deep a flavour as toffee popcorn and I found it almost hinted at banana (now that would be a good variety!). It also reminded me of something from my childhood but I couldn’t work out what it was – it was making me think of biscuits but I couldn’t think of anything specific that would have tasted like this product! As I normally do, I really enjoyed the sugary shell that the coating formed, and the more thickly coated pieces were definitely the tastiest, as well as the crunchiest, which provided a nice contrast to the otherwise squishy popcorn. 

This was definitely a very moreish treat! 

Appearance: 7.5/10

Aroma: 7.5/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.5/10