I had an abundance of dates that I wanted to combine with my current popcorn obsession. This is a somewhat savory recipe that combines these in a moderately healthy way.
Ingredients
| Ingredient | Quantity | Mass (g) |
|---|---|---|
| Air-Popped Popcorn | 2 cups | 16 |
| Medjool dates | 0.5 cups | 100 |
| Mixed nuts | 0.25 cups | 40 |
| Dried berries | 2 tablespoons | 20 |
| Flax seeds | 1 tablespoon | 10 |
| Sesame seeds | 1 tablespoon | 9 |
| Chia seeds | 1 tablespoon | 12 |
| Water | 6 tablespoons | 90 |
| Hazelnut oil | 2 teaspoons | 10 |
| Maple syrup | 1 teaspoon | 5 |
| Worcestershire sauce | 0.5 teaspoon | 3 |
| Smoked paprika | 0.25 teaspoon | 0.5 |
| Garlic powder | 0.125 teaspoon | 0.3 |
| Onion powder | 0.125 teaspoon | 0.3 |
| Cayenne pepper | 1 pinch | 0.2 |
| Sea salt | 0.125 teaspoon | 0.7 |
| Ground black pepper | 1 pinch | 0.2 |
| Gross Mass | 317.2 | |
Procedure
- Preheat your oven to 150°C (300°F). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, mix the chia seeds with 3 tablespoons of water. Let the mixture sit for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it forms a gel-like consistency.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the popcorn, chopped dates, mixed nuts, dried berries, flax seeds, and sesame seeds.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the melted hazelnut oil, maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, and the remaining 3 tablespoons of water.
- In another small bowl, mix together the smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, sea salt, and ground black pepper.
- Pour the hazelnut oil mixture over the popcorn mixture, stirring well to ensure that all ingredients are evenly coated.
- Add the chia seed gel to the popcorn mixture, mixing well to evenly distribute
- Sprinkle the spice mix over the popcorn mixture, and stir again to evenly distribute the spices.
- Spread the mixture out on the prepared baking sheet in a single layer. The chia seed gel will help create clusters of ingredients.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, stirring halfway through, until the nuts and seeds are lightly toasted and the popcorn is crisp. Be careful not to let the popcorn burn.
- Remove from the oven and allow the trail mix to cool completely on the baking sheet. The mix will become crispier as it cools.
- Once cooled, store the Savory Popcorn and Date Trail Mix with Chia Seed Gel in an airtight container for up to one week.
Notes
This recipe was made in collaboration with GPT-4 as an experiment. Over the course of seven prompts (and responses), the collaboration began with asking to create a unique recipe based on some ingredients I have available. I offered some tweaks to the first response and asked it to refine the recipe over several steps. At once point I asked, hoping it would say no, whether the addition of flavored protein powder would be advisable and it suggested it – I chose to omit this and the chatbot simply moved on.
This recipe was also typeset in collaboration with GPT-4. A while back I wrote a custom Hugo shortcode which accepts YAML formatted recipes and does some nice formatting. I gave the chatbot a very minimal example of the YAML syntax and it wrote out the whole thing (in two parts, since the first became truncated during the procedure).
I made this recipe – it was alright. Very heavily dominated with dates, though admittedly I asked the chatbot to emphasize dates since I like them to much. The popcorn was a bit soggy, even after baking, and I baked it for an extra 10 minutes over the recommended time. I suspect this was partly because the recipe is scaled down to 1/4th of the original suggestion – 4x everything would have made it easier to omit the water, less liquid overall, and made the popcorn less moist. Still, not as bad as one could imagine.
My parner disagreed – she did not like this recipe at all.
The taste is all bad. Don’t make this.
I don’t think I would make it again, but a nice experiment, and potentially the recipe could be saved.