Red Velvet Popcorn

I started really concentrating on baking, cakes and cupcakes, almost two years ago.  Before that time I had never had red velvet anything.  And truth be told, the first time I tried it I wasn't all that impressed with it.  I didn't really understand what all the craze was about red velvet.  Then, a few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me to make cupcakes for her daughter's upcoming wedding and one of the flavors she wanted was red velvet.  I decided to try out 3 different red velvet recipes and have her sample them to decide which one was the best tasting, after all, I didn't really care for red velvet and wasn't sure what a "good" red velvet cupcake tasted like.  I was pleasantly surprised by how good two of the three recipes were.  I now know what the big deal is about red velvet!  So, in honor of this new found fondness for red velvet I've devoted an entire section of 7 recipes just to red velvet.  The first of those 7 is. . .

Red Velvet Popcorn
adapted from Cookies & Cups

Ingredients

1/3 red velvet cake (I used a cake mix)

12-14 cups popped popcorn, not buttered and unsalted

12 ounces white chocolate, melted (I used vanilla almond bark, which tastes just like white chocolate to me)

Directions

1. Prepare cake as direction.  You only need about 1/3 of the cake so I actually split my box cake mix into thirds, divided the required ingredients into thirds and only baked 1/3 of the cake.  Once cooled break cake into crumbs and set aside.

2. Cover two cookie sheets with wax paper.  Melt chocolate and pour over popped popcorn making sure to coat all kernels.  Spread coated popcorn onto cookie sheets.

3. Immediately sprinkle cake crumbs over popcorn before chocolate hardens back up.  

4. Allow chocolate to cool and harden before breaking popcorn apart.

Note:  The next time I make this I am going to try mixing the cake crumbs into the melted chocolate before pouring it over the popcorn.  The way I did it as directed above didn't allow for a lot of the cake crumbs to attach to the popcorn.  

By the way. . .  isn't this perfect for Valentine's Day or even Christmas?  Hope everyone received extra love today!