This recipe is borrowed from my cousin Diddles and is completely her own work. I love it when kitchen-savvy people come to stay and play the xbox with me and provide me with munchies. This one’s genius.

You need:

- A large pot with a lid to contain the madness,
- Two tablespoons of veggible oil,
- Enough popcorn kernels to cover the base of said pot, and then some… a layer and a half for two people.
- 8 squares of cooking chocolate… or 100g of your scientific units maybe?
- A teaspoonish of salt.

I love making real popcorn. Heating the oil to sizzling point and throwing the kernels into their doom, watching them writhe in panic like Gremlins in sunlight as they’re shaken vigorously by a hungry human until that first one suddenly can’t take it anymore and blows itself up, self sacrifice for my belly. Then the lid goes on and furious poppidge ensues, possibly the most entertaining thing a five year old can experience of your average Sunday evening. Just remember to agitate the pot so that the unpopped stuff is always touching the base, that’s all it takes.

When the last few kamikaze kernels are popping and the madness dies down, she goes off the heat to relax. That’s when the chocolate gets zapped in the microwave for 3 of your longest minutes (or two if you’ve a fauncy 200W microzapper) until it reaches a creamy state.

Mix it or drizzle it, it doesn’t matter, but do add the salt, as weird as it seems, it works.

Diddle’s dirteh popcorn. Better than an attack of the Jaffa Cakes, that’s fo sure.