love popcorn balls, but not the mess making them. this has solved that problem

works Great

I've been making traditional (corn syrup) popcorn balls for over 15 years and I wished I had known about this gadget before now! I can't speak for marshmallow based popcorn balls but if you make traditional old-fashioned corn syrup popcorn balls then you need to buy one of these immediately. When you use corn syrup at 300 degrees, even with buttering your hands and using wax paper to ball the popcorn, you still end up hurting your fingers because it's so hot. I hate having to use wax paper because no matter what you always have bits of the paper that won't come off the popcorn when you're ready to eat it but you have to use wax paper to ball the popcorn to protect your hands. But with this popcorn baller I didn't even need the wax paper at all! The popcorn balled up so tightly it hardened in ball form without any wax paper at all and none of them fell apart. The other annoying part of popcorn balls is scraping the bottom of the bowl as you get to the end. As you race to ball all the popcorn while the syrup is hardening and the popcorn gets stuck to the bowl you will always end up with a lot of hard syrup and stuck popcorn at the end you can't get out of the bowl that goes to waste. At first I thought these ballers were silicone and was disappointed to find out they were plastic and hesitanted to buy them for a while. I'm so glad they are not silicone! Because they're made of hard plastic they can easily scrape the popcorn and syrup right out of the bowl! I had the least amount of waste I've ever seen! I was able to use all but a few stay bits! I buttered the inside of each cup as well as the outside rims before I began balling and I didn't have any issues. I will now be telling people there are TWO tricks to getting the best popcorn balls. One, is heat the syrup to 300 degrees. Recipes will all tell you soft ball or soft crack but my grandmother's 1950s cook book says otherwise. You have to heat it to hard crack to get the crunchiest balls vs. chewy and hard to eat. But second of all I will now be telling people you must also have a Jolly Time popcorn baller to get the best results! I sure do wish I had known about these years ago.

Just like one we had years ago, just butter inside liberally. Works great.

Must have for making popcorn balls. I don't make them often, but my family loves them. I had one for years and lost it in a move. Trying to make popcorn balls with you hands is not a good idea even with butter on them to protect from the heat.