One of my favorite flavor combinations is cinnamon and chocolate. During my college days, I spent most of my paychecks on giant bags of chocolate covered cinnamon bears from the BYU book store. They are the BEST. I had those flavors in mind when I set out to make a munchable-sharable-irresistible treat with those same flavors. This sweet coated popcorn is studded with crushed red hots for bursts of cinnamon and crushed Oreo cookies for a crunchy crumbly chocolaty bite. I like to top mine with a little drizzle of semi-sweet or dark chocolate and a sprinkle of sea salt. This Cinnamon Cookie Crunch Popcorn is good any time of the year, but especially fun for Valentine festivities!
Ingredients for Cinnamon Cookie Crunch Popcorn
I’m a huge fan of red hots. I personally think they’re totally unappreciated. I’m noticing they’re not carried as much by grocery stores, especially in February, so if you have trouble finding them, try Walgreens. My Walgreens carries them year round in boxes and I believe other similar drug stores would as well.
Since we don’t want to break our teeth here, we’re going to smash up those candies. Put them in a ziplock bag and then give them a good whack with a meat mallet or hammer or something.
You’ll also need your crushed oreos. I’ve found I get a much better texture when I actually chop the cookies up finely with a large knife (as opposed to trying to also smash with a hammer)
Lastly, popcorn. You’ll notice my kernels here are large and round, and that’s because I use Mushroom Popcorn. I just get it on Amazon!
Making the Popcorn
I like to put all my dry ingredients in a bowl so they’re ready to go. Add your popcorn, red hots and cookies to the biggest bowl you have. My absolute FAVORITE bowl is this giant one. It makes mixing popcorn recipes so easy! It’s the same bowl I talked about and showed you in my recent Strawberry Rice Krispie recipe.
Then you’ll just pour some almond bark over the popcorn. Almond bark has nothing to do with almonds, it’s simply white candy coating, similar to white chocolate.
One optional ingredient is cinnamon oil. You can use extract, but be aware that like in our Peppermint Bark Popcorn, it can cause the mixture to seize. It’s actually not a huge problem, it just looks scary. If it turns clumpy just pour it on the popcorn real fast and mix it all up. Cinnamon oil on the other hand is stronger with a crisper cinnamon flavor and it will stay nice and smooth and mix right in so if you can, use it over extract. You can find oils at kitchen supply stores, or at craft stores near the candy making supplies, or right here on Amazon– that’s the brand I use. I just love cinnamon so I like the extra pop of flavor, but I’m sure this would still be yummy without it!
Drizzle on Some Chocolate
Once the mixture is poured on the popcorn and stirred well to coat it all, spread out the popcorn on a big cookie sheet that’s been lined with foil, parchment, or a silicone baking mat and drizzle a little chocolate over the top.
Don’t forget the Salt!
After that, give everything a light sprinkle of kosher or sea salt. That’s a step some people skip on sweet recipes, but don’t! It balances out the flavors and enhances everything! Most sweet things are better with salt. I like sea salt on popcorn recipes, but kosher salt works great, too.
My favorite is the little chunks of chocolate with flaked salt on them.
Cool and Eat
Let the chocolate harden completely. I usually pop the pan in the fridge, or outside on a cold day to help it along. When it’s all hardened, break it up into pieces and you’re good to go.
You get little bits of crunchy cookies and bursts of cinnamon candy all with that creamy almond bark. It’s SO yummy and different and perfectly Valentine-y.
Try it and let me know what you think!
Related Links
Click here for more Valentine’s Day ideas.
Love popcorn mixes? Check out these other favorites!
Cinnamon Caramel Corn with Pecans & White Chocolate {AKA Cinnamon Bun Popcorn!}
Chocolate Covered Cinnamon Bear Popcorn
Did You Make This?
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PrintCinnamon Cookie Crunch Popcorn
Description
Sweet and salty popcorn mix with bursts of cinnamon candy and cookie crunch.
Ingredients
12 cups popped popcorn, natural, or lightly salted works best
1 pound almond bark
1/2 cup red hot candies
10 Oreo cookies
optional: 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon flavored oil *see note
2–3 tablespoons semisweet or dark chocolate chips
kosher or sea salt
Instructions
Place popcorn in large mixing bowl.
Place red hots in a heavy duty ziplock bag and smash with a meat mallet or hammer to crush. Roughly chop Oreo cookies into rough crumbs/chunks.
In a medium sized microwave safe bowl, melt almond bark according to package instructions until smooth. Add cinnamon oil to taste, if using.
Pour mixture over popcorn and stir well to coat. Pour popcorn mixture onto a baking sheet lined with foil, parchment or a silicone mat and set aside. Melt chocolate chips and drizzle over popcorn mixture.
Sprinkle kosher or sea salt lightly over mixture to taste. Let popcorn mixture harden, place in fridge to speed it up. When completely dry, break into chunks and just try to stop yourself from eating it all in one sitting.
Notes
*Cinnamon oil (available online or at cooking stores and sometimes in the baking aisle) works well for this. You can use extract, but mix it in fast as it can cause almond bark to seize.
I have a big popcorn popper (like movie theatre type but not that big)..I also have air popper—what would you use? The popcorn popper needs oil of course and air popper just the kernels, not sure whats best in your opinion,,,THANKS!
Honestly, either. You just want to avoid lots of extra butter flavor, that’s all.
My dad worked for Sweets Candy Co. and is actually the one who invented the chocolate covered cinnamon bears. BYU bookstore was one of their first buyers. It’s our family’s claim to fame. Ha ha!
WHAT?! Oh my gosh. Coolest thing ever. I bow down to your Father, he changed my life forever haha.
Hi Sara, I don’t know if you check old posts’ comments, but I love the chocolate covered cinnamon bears too! I discovered them at Winco in the bulk bins and they are softer than the Bookstore’s I think. You have Winco in Idaho right? Just wanted to share that with you :0) Thanks for all you do!
I made this, eliminating the cinnamon oil and substituting pretzel M&Ms for the Oreos. DELICIOUS!
I also used 2 semi-sweet chocolate squares in place of the chips. They melted in the ziploc back in the microwave perfectly.
I love all of your recipes!
I sooooooooo wish i didn’t have strep throat right now!
I’m in Germany and could not find almond bark so I used white chocolate and it worked just fine.
Loved making this! I also tossed in some valentines colored M and Ms (no ampersand on my iPad) just for looks and it was darling! Thanks so much!
I forgot, also had a small problemo with the choc chips. How did you melt yours. I had to try that twice. The first time, they “dried” out, so the second time i heated approx 15 seconds, squished the bag and tried to “string” it over the popcorn mix, it went OK, but i could’a done it better i feel, thanks again
can you use quick candy if you can’t find almond bark?
Yep- quick candy IS almond bark! Just a brand name 🙂
Sara, can you use air-popped popcorn? I had to buy some off label red hots from the Dollar Tree after visiting Walmart, Target and Publix, without success. Hope they will be ok…
Yep, airpopped is great. Probably the best actually.
How long do these last? Can I make them on Sunday and will they still be good to give away on Tuesday morning?
If you package it well, it should be just fine for that time period. Enjoy!
How far in advance would it be okay to make this? Does it hold pretty well?
Besides the fact I already ate 1 batch haha I have to make some for the family valentine!
Yeah, it will be good for several days if kept in an airtight container.
You guys are so so so talented!! and darling-i heard you speak at timeout for women in Layton, feb.4th, it was awesome. Thanks for helping me not feel so inadequate,yet when i look at your blog i still do…plus most of my kids are grown up. How do you do it all??? You are amazing and talented! Thanks for sharing.
Our family loved this! We ate the whole batch this weekend and I will be making another batch with the tags you have posted. I love your web site, love your cookbook and can not wait for the second cookbook to come out! You guys are awesome and I am so grateful you share all the ideas you come up with, it makes my life easier. You are two of my favorite people! Thanks for sharing!
Yum! Yum! Just finished making this for my visiting teaching gifts for the month……and I just might have to take something else so I can keep this all for me! SO GOOD!!!! There goes my resolution to lose weight! 🙂 LOVE IT! Thanks!
Weird but I could not find red hots in Target! They did have Duff’s red hot sprinkles for much more $$ so that’s what I went for. I’ll go to another store and stock up on red hots for my next batch.