Elite Gourmet EPM330M Automatic Stirring 12-cup Popcorn Maker Popper, Hot Oil Popcorn Machine w/Measuring Cap & Built-in Reversible Serving Bowl, Great for Home Party Kids, Safety ETL Approved, Mint

Needed a popcorn popper because I wanted to get away from the microwave product. This popper is great. The little sweeping arm takes care of not having burned kernals. The size is perfect for 2 and a movie. Cleanup is easy enough and the butter melter works great.

Ok, we have the popper that most have, you warm it up, pour kernels in, bowl under the opening, and the dogs get as much as you do. OR the kind you pop in the microwave. OR if you were born like I was, late 60s, you remember the silver pan you shook on the stove and as the tin foil top filled with popcorn, you thought you were the Best. Chef. EVER!!!!! 😂 This particular popper uses very little oil- and actually recommends a "healthy" oil (think coconut, avocado, vegetable or peanut). Use real butter, not imitation. And real popcorn salt. OR there is "flavored salt" ranch, caramel, cheddar cheese, butter flavors (I'm sure there is more). Its better than air popped!!!!! Not greasy-even with both butter & oil. Not salty, even with salt on it. Not loud-we've used it with my Autistic Grandson here and he loves it!!! (He sat with his hands over his ears for the air popper, and he said he'd really like one like this, so he's getting one for Christmas!!!) ❤️ I'm a type 2 diabetic with blood pressure issues. The diabetic diet and the heart diet do NOT get along-but popcorn is encouraged by both, with a small amount of butter & salt (very small). It's ok for the blood pressure and doesn't make the blood sugar spike. So it's a win-win This machine is quiet, easy to use, uses a small amount of oil, the popcorn we use pops well (the Amish brand which has many different kinds. Personally the "blue" kernel is to die for!!!), and its easy to clean and store. I'm happy our eldest recommended this popper!! It has performed better than she has even said!!

Great product! Took a couple tries, but we’ve got the ratios and timing figured out so that we never have any burnt popcorn, and almost all of the kernels pop! The butter melting feature is really cool! But if you’re a butteraholic like me, it may not suffice. My family loves popcorn but I personally will not buy the microwaveable bag crap. Sure, we can pop it on the stove in a pan like we have for years, but this is much more fun! Only gave 4 stars because the cover/“bowl” is very flimsy feeling! It hasn’t been an issue yet, but my husband refuses to risk using it. He transfers to another bowl after popping. I stick with the flimsy bowl intended because there’s so much butter coating the bowl! Oh, and it is slightly difficult to clean thoroughly but not much.

small but efficient, fast easy use

Basic popcorn popper pops the popcorn efficiently. The "measuring lid" can't really be used to measure anything as it is very shallow. The lid also does not fit well onto the bowl/dome. The bowl can be used to serve but since the lid does not fit well and the vent holes aren't completely covered, salt and oil comes through the vent holes. Oil gets to the outside of the bowl easily which is annoying. Don't set the bowl down on anything you don't want oil to get on.

So far I love it! I’ve only had it about three weeks, but I’ve been using it at least once a day ever since. I tend to eat the same thing over and over again and currently popcorn is my kick. I got tired of the microwave no oil popcorn. And really craved popcorn cooked in oil. I dragged mine out from underneath the counter and had to pull half my small appliances out in order to get the popcorn popper out. I really didn’t want to go through that every day. It’s just me so I didn’t need that big popper anymore anyway. The small size of this one is perfect. The only thing I would do different is to have a detachable cord. Other than that, I like that it has an on and off button the caps, a little difficult to get in place, but it locks in where others just popped on and off. I put in a rounded quarter cup of kernels and have been using a combination of avocado oil and butter-flavored coconut oil. I probably use 2 tablespoons instead of the recommended 1 tablespoon, but it comes out great. And there is room in there for more popcorn but the amount I have is probably enough for two people. Lol. And if it’s not enough, I can quickly pop another batch Instead of the small, flavored seasonings, I use powdered cheddar cheese, which is even better than the cheese in those old-fashioned craft macaroni and cheese kits. I’ll also use Tajin or creole seasoning. And of course, freshly ground Himalayan salt. I use the butter melting once, but with the flavored coconut oil, I really don’t need it. Probably because I put a little extra oil in there the popcorn has that butter feeling. I have washed the cover in the dishwasher more than once. It’s actually a lot easier that way to get the grease off. I also like that the bottom doesn’t have an opening for the grease to get in from the top. If it does, it’s a tiny tiny crack, but I haven’t had a problem at all. This was something that I did have a problem with my old one. The stir works fine and once I even forgot to put the screw cap on, and it held onto it even without that. If you’re considering it, I say go for it! By the larger size if you want a larger capacity. But for one person and limited space, I couldn’t see anything better than this one out there and I’m very pleased.

love this popcorn popper.It's fast and I have not had any burned popcorn.Great product I will tell all my family and friend if they need this is the one to get.

[Review has now been further revised to reflect just how fragile this is] [Review has been revised to reflect further efforts to get good result with Mushroom Popcorn by Hoosier Hill Farm.] I've just thrown this out after less than 6 months of use. The problem is that the cover for the butter well in the top/bowl will no longer stay in place. It is supposed to be held in place by small, flimsy plastic clips and too many of them have broken off, even though I tried to be careful with them. This makes it very difficult to flip the popper over at the end of its popping and impossible to use the top as a bowl. It's a little design detail that saves the manufacturer a penny or two -- and quickly makes the popper useless. I hope to find different brand with better design. _____________________________________________________________________________________ This is essentially a modernized version of the electric corn popper used by my mother's family a century or more ago. (It survived in my mom's kitchen long enough for me to enjoy it as a kid.) This uses plastics instead of steel and has a motor to turn the stirring rod instead of a hand crank but the principles are identical and so is the performance. Having a good idea what to expect, I tried it with two different popcorns. Snappy White Popcorn is a pretty standard sort of popcorn in terms of kernal size and it produces normal butterfly popped kernals. The Snappy kernals I have are from 2020 but still popped quite well, with scarcely any unpopped or partly-popped old maids. I followed the directions, with 3 tablespoons of oil and a bit more than 1/3 cup of kernals. This filled the top/bowl to the brim, and flavor and texture were excellent. Mushroom Popcorn by Hoosier Hill Farm was a different story. Mine is only a week old but it popped quite badly, with a great many old maids, and not many fully-developed mushroom popped kernals. But the same popcorn pops considerably better in my Presto 04830 PowerPop Microwave Multi-Popper. I'm not totally sure why it does so very poorly the Elite Gourmet machine but I'm pretty certain that it has a lot to do with the quite large size of the unpopped kernals. Hoosier Hill, which spends a lot of Web space patting itself on the back regarding the quality of its product, does not seem inclined to offer any hints, but the instructions on the package, which suggest using a stovetop popper for best results, led me to an experiment that produced better popcorn from it with the Elite. I poured a generous layer of oil on the hot plate (more than recommended) and placed just a few kernals on it before turning on. When those had popped I turned it off, quickly removed the cover, put 1/3 cup of kernals in, and restarted it. The result was a considerable improvement with a large proportion of large mushroom popped kernals and somewhat improved flavor and texture. There were still many fragments of hull, however, and a number of old maids. It's quite important, I judge, to turn off the machine and dump the popcorn as soon as popping stops, as otherwise you risk burning your popcorn. It's very simple: just clap the cover on the vent, grasp the handles, and tip it over. It's light enough to make it quite easy for anyone. The little vent and butter cup at the top of the cover really works fine for melting butter if you are not too stupid about how you do it. The butter needs to be sliced into several thinner slices spread around over the vent slits rather than dumped in one big clump. Then it melts just fine and imparts a wonderful buttery flavor throughout the batch. I generally spread it around a bit with the knife blade midway through the popping just to be sure, but it doesn't seem to be truly necessary. Of course butter isn't great for you. Much better to spray the popped corn with a butter-infused olive oil, but it doesn't really produce quite the same effect, sadly, although it really is quite good. The plastic in the top/bowl is quite thin but doesn't really seem flimsy to me, because it is flexible and not at all inclined to crack. It's probably not going to last 35 or 40 years, the way my mom's popper did, however. Cleanup is pretty straightforward. Three quarts is not enough for a very big family or party, but I note that there are machines operating on similar principles in 6 quart sizes on Amazon. I expect that the performance is probably similar, although it may be that some handle the Mushroom Popcorn by Hoosier Hill Farm better.