A popcorn air popper is a wonderful gadget to have if you are a popcorn lover. We absolutely love popcorn and eat it often, but we actually don't have an air popper. Let's just call it our minimalist tendencies (thank you, Marie Kondo) - and the fact that we've been happily using the "paper bag" trick for years to make our popcorn.
Here's how you do it. Grab a paper lunch bag, pour in about 1/4 cup of popcorn, fold the top of the bag over a couple times and pop it in the microwave. Now, here's where you do need to know your microwave and pay attention. For us, the sweet spot is about 1 minute and 40 seconds, but yours could be longer or shorter depending on your microwave. To test yours, set the microwave for about 3 minutes and stand by. When you hear about 2 seconds between pops, quickly turn off the microwave and remove the paper bag. Now you can sprinkle some butter, oil, salt, nutritional yeast, or other seasonings directly into the bag, give it a shake, and your snack is ready!
For the purposes of the Turtle Caramel Popcorn recipe, we needed 3/4 cup of uncooked popcorn popped. We made 3 quick batches of our paper bag popcorn (sans toppings), and we were ready to go.