Perfect Popping but Chase that Corn! (Breville BP03)

Member Name: Meggysmum

Product:	Breville BP03
Date:	14/08/09 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quick,easy and healthy

Disadvantages: Corn all over the kitchen!

Several years ago my children were given a children's popcorn maker. It was a dreadful thing and popped about one kernel per 10 minutes and always caused disappointment. However it led me to discover that my children were perfectly happy eating plain popcorn without salt or sugar so I looked around for a home popcorn maker that would work well enough to at least provide a handful of popcorn before boredom set in!

I ended up at Argos as I located this party-Time Popcorn maker in their catalogue. They no longer sell it but I have seen it for sale elsewhere but not in the last few months so it may now only be available as a used item.

The popcorn maker is about 12inches high when complete and is presented in a pale turquoise blue and purple colour scheme. It is certainly not the most tasteful of colours and I certainly wouldn't want it sitting on my worktop all the time! As you can see from the picture it is consists of an oval shaped body with a clear plastic lid and then the scoop sits on top of the lid as the cover. The product feels solid and stable and it would be very difficult to knock over as the base well designed.

Using the machine is very easy. You measure out one scoop of corn kernels (easily available in most supermarkets); you then place these inside the centre of the unit from the top. The clear cover is then put back on and then finally the scoop is put on the very top to prevent kernels popping all over your kitchen! You will need to find a suitable container to collect the popped corn. This needs to be quite tall and pretty large. This is because the chute that the popcorn comes down is actually about 6 inches above the work-surface and is quite wide. I have now settled for a heat-proof jug. The area at the mouth of the chute does become quite hot and will bend some plastic containers. The switch to turn the machine on is easily located towards the rear on the right-hand side. Once switched on the popcorn maker swirls the kernels around quickly whilst heating them. This is quite a noisy affair so don't try and hold a conversation at the same time. It takes a couple of minutes before the corn starts to pop and then suddenly there is an avalanche of popcorn! The corn comes down the chute but it doesn't really direct it terribly well. I find raw and popped kernels shooting around the kitchen but I concentrate on holding the jug to catch as much as I can. I can promise you that you will find these escapees for days to come no matter how many you think you have cleaned up!

I would estimate that it takes less than 5 minutes to pop all of the kernels from one scoop. This gives a very large portion to each of my two children who have a great capacity for eating popcorn. I think many families may find it is enough for 3 or 4 people if they are used to smaller portions.

It suggests that you should only run the machine for 5 minutes before letting it cool down for 10 minutes. I have never run it for longer but I presume it would easily get overheated. The instructions also suggest that if you wish to have butter on your corn you can put it in the scoop whilst the corn is popping so that it will melt. I imagine this works perfectly well but I have not tried it. As with all these type of machines that I have come across there are always some kernals that don't pop but the majority in this machine produce nicly popped corn.

I have been pleased with the speed with which this machine works and it provides a healthy snack for the children and me whilst watching a film at home (although I am of course really dreaming about Butterkist Toffee popcorn!). I am not impressed with the design of the popcorn chute as it does allow unpopped kernels to shoot out and these are EXTREMELY hot and will burn if they land on you or you pick them up. For this reason I would not let younger children be around whilst using it. However the body of the machine does not get very hot to the touch. We use this machine at least once every couple of weeks and we have had it a couple of years and it still looks new and works perfectly.

Overall I think this has been a good buy and hopefully will keep going for a good while yet!

Summary: An effective machine but be at the ready with a huge container!