On a beautiful spring day last year, I discovered Popped! Republic. I had waited too long to eat lunch and was “stomach starting to digest itself” hungry. I had no food in my office and had too little time before my next meeting to go get something. When I glanced out the window to consider what to do, I thought this was a mirage:

But no, it was a snack miracle…right outside my office. I made a meal out of a small bag of their Kettle Corn (all of their popcorn flavors have cute “D.C.-related” names, so it’s actually “K Street Kettle Korn”) and now usually go through a medium bag of this stuff per week. It’s sweet, it’s salty, it’s crunchy, it’s available right outside my office most Wednesday afternoons! What’s not to love?

Inspired by my love of this Kettle Corn, I developed an ice cream recipe to replicate the flavor. The description of Kettle Corn on Popped! Republic’s website says “white sugar, salt and corn oil.” No way was I going to waste their kettle corn, so I popped up some corn myself using a tiny amount of corn oil, steeped the popcorn in the dairy, and lightly caramelized the sugar. It took a couple of tries to get it right, but the final result was the perfect combination of sweet and salty.