31 Days of Halloween: Vegan Popcorn Brain Balls

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I stumbled upon  a picture of popcorn balls and immediately thought that they looked like braiiiiiiins (maybe I should lay off the zombie flicks for a while...but who am I kidding? I could never do that haha!)! That is how inspiration for these Popcorn “Brain” Balls was born!

All you really need for this recipe is plain popcorn, marshmallows, butter and some red food coloring! Nothing could be easier...or ooey-gooey delicious! Recipe below veganized/adapted from this recipe and various online sources (I lost the other sources after cobbling together this recipe...if you know the other sources please tell me so I can give proper credit!).

Popcorn Brain Balls

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup un-popped popcorn (or about 4 cups plain popped corn)
6 tablespoons vegan butter (I use Earth Balance)
5 cups miniature vegan marshmallows (I use Dandies)

For decoration:

Red food coloring
Powdered sugar
Water

Directions:

1. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish with vegan shortening, butter or margarine. Set aside.
2. If you are using popped corn, skip to step #3. If using un-popped corn, add vegetable oil to a 4 quart saucepan, and heat over high heat. When oil is hot, add popping corn. Keep pan moving constantly. When corn stops popping, remove from heat. Put popcorn in prepared pan.
3. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir in marshmallows a little at a time and stir constantly until melted. Pour mixture over popcorn and mix with spoon to coat evenly.
4. Let mixture cool slightly. Coat your hands in butter or grease and mix popcorn and mixture with your hands so that it is evenly coated.
5. Form popcorn into 8 balls.
6. If you want, you can use a mixture of a few drops of red food coloring (make sure it is vegan or use natural food coloring from plants), a few teaspoons of powdered sugar (again, make sure to buy a vegan brand) and a little bit of water to make a paste. Use the paste to draw veins on your brain balls! Alternately, you could just add a few drops of red to your butter and marshmallow mixture to give your brain balls a nice pinkish red tint!