OK, so my youngest - aged 13 - is suddenly lit up over Jiffy Pop. No kidding. I’ll even toss in a ‘what the hell?’ for those playing at home. Apparently it’s mentioned prominently in some Tumblr thing she and her friends are into.
She asks for some, I don’t even know if it’s still sold. Turns out it is, I pick one up at the store. Fine.
But there’s a warning label on the package (which, FTR, seems much less metallic and more plastic/ceramic than I recall from the 1970s) that it can’t be heated on a glass top stove. It gives no more info than that. Just that it shouldn’t be used on glass or ceramic stoves.
What the hell? Much disappointment in the smaller Chance demographic.
But it’s got me wondering. What’s the warning all about? What horrible horrors could we open by cooking Jiffy Pop on a glasstop stove?
I’d guess the back and forth shaking with a metallic bottom would do bad things to a glass stove top. When I was a kid the stove top had metal coils so no problems there.
Probably to avoid complaints from people who scratch their cooking surfaces moving the pan back and forth. Maybe also there’s problems with inconsistent heat sources. Don’t those burners turn themselves off and on to regulate temperature? Could slow down your popcorn production.
I know it may sound silly, but you could just get a single burner hot plate solely for the production of jiffy pop popcorn. They’re pretty inexpensive.
I’m pretty sure Inner Stickler has the heart of the answer. Product liability. We’re so sorry that you scratched your glass top stove with our product, but it clearly states in the directions…
As a kid, the only times I remember us making Jiffy Pop was when we were camping. Make a fire in your fireplace and do it there, or over a gas or charcoal grill.
I recently received a Jiffy Pop as part of a birthday gift. Because… reasons? Anyway, like the OP I was distressed to find that you are not cook this on a glass-top stove. It gets worse, though… Max’s advice here certainly seems sound, but the full warning on the Jiffy Pop tray is: “Do not pop on glass top ceramic range, or over charcoal grill, open campfire, or other uneven heat.”
I’ve never had a glass stovetop, just electric burners, so maybe it doesn’t apply, but I stopped agitating the pot when I make popcorn ages ago and I haven’t found that it burns. The popping inside the pot seems to keep the kernels moving around sufficiently.
Couldn’t you just set something like an aluminum foil roasting pan on the glass stovetop, and then agitate the Jiffypop pan over that? Should work fine, and even if you damage the roaster pan, they are disposable anyway, and cost $5-$8 locally.
Or even just put a length of aluminum foil over the burner – might have to tape that down, but it’s cheaper yet.
It is a lot more fun especially if you’re a kid or nostalgic. The popping sound and then the blossoming of the foil top is just neat. Is it better than microwave popcorn? Maybe, but I’ve never considered microwave anything to be the default standard in food flavor.
This is my experience, too. I use a cast iron frying pan, though, which may distribute heat more evenly than the thin bottom of jiffy pop. Also, my stove is gas.
(Well, I give the pan a shake now and then. But i certainly don’t agitate it “constantly”. The worst thing about jiffy pop is that it made me believe popcorn is hard to cook.)
Microwave popcorn is too greasy and has a funny flavor, so i avoid it. I haven’t had jiffy pop since i was a kid, and they’ve probably changed the recipe, so no opinion.
You know, I can live with that. It’s better than discovering that it might melt us all through release of some toxic combination of Jiffy Pop pan and glass somehow.
It remains a mystery to me why a thirteen year old is suddenly excited about Jiffy Pop, however. What’s next? Food Sticks? Tang? Bell bottoms?
I’ve only used Jiffy Pop on gas stoves, so I can’t say how they’d work on a glass top stove. That said, I did have a glass stove for a long time, and as much as I hated it for a lot of reasons (switching to gas was the best home improvement choice I’ve made), it was not as fragile as it’s made out to be. It took a beating for close to a decade and still worked fine when we replaced it. And yes, my wife the popcorn connoisseur did make popcorn on it a lot, moving the pan around, and it worked fine. I’d imagine the cheap foil pan used for Jiffy Pop is less damaging to the glass than the big steel pots she used.