Why Are TikTokers Cooking Caramel Popcorn With A Whole Egg?
While you're scrolling through your daily feed, you're going to find yourself weeding through plenty of TikTok food trends and hacks. Amongst them, you may find a caramel popcorn hack. And in the course of that video, you may also see someone put an entire egg in the popcorn pan, like the tutorial from the account @myjanebrain that's captioned, "Why am I just learning this popcorn trick?" Inevitably, you're probably questioning if you're seeing things. Is the popcorn chef going to crack open the egg to make a yolky caramel sauce? Is it being used to indicate the heat of the pan? Will it crack when it's time to add in the kernels? Does the egg somehow moderate the temperature of the caramel to prevent burning?
The answer is absolutely none of the above. The egg serves zero purpose, but if you watched all the way to the end of the video to see what would happen to it, then the content creator has succeeded. The puzzling egg in the popcorn pan attracts viewers and encourages confused, even outraged comments, which gives the video a higher ranking, allowing it to reach more soon-to-be-baffled viewers.
What will crack first, the egg or your brain?
@foodporn Did you know about this egg trick when making popcorn?! 👀🍿 #fyp #foryou #popcorn #kitchenhacks
The account @foodporn offers a perfect example of this view-harvesting trickery, with a tutorial for caramel candy popcorn captioned, "Did you know about this egg trick when making popcorn?!" A pair of hands add a whole in-shell egg to a smoking hot pan, followed by two sticks of butter, hard caramel candies, and corn kernels. "What's going to hatch first, the corn kernels or the egg?" a voice asks. The instructor ignores the comment, continuing to stir the eggs and kernels together and adding a sprinkle of sea salt. Then they continue to pop the snack as you normally would. Finally, the video reveals a clumpy mess of half-popped kernels and over-cooked caramel, before the instructor removes the egg with tongs, without explanation.
One comment captures our collective reaction well, stating, "The only trick was to waste me [sic] time watching this." Another user wrote, "The purpose of the egg was to make us watch and comment. Pure bait and I got got." So there you have it. The next time you want to make caramel-coated popcorn at home, skip the egg.