Football Poppers and Super Bowls!

Football Poppers are savory football shaped cheddar cheese dough wrapped around either cream cheese and jalapeno or buffalo chicken and blue cheese. Also presented are the Super Bowls....cheddar dough bowl filled with ALL of the football popper ingredients!

This basic cheddar cheese dough can be used for any manner of appetizers limited only by your imagination!

The basic cheddar dough for both the football poppers and super bowls is the same.  It is very versatile and can be molded, rolled into balls or rolled between wax paper for making a roll up.

Cheddar Dough:

1 1/2 C white flour
1 stick of butter
2 C shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Roughly 1 C wing/hot sauce

Buffalo Chicken  Popper filling:

One package ground chicken (bought or ground at home)
Hot sauce-amount will vary by the amount of chicken used.
1 TB apple cider vinegar
2 TB butter

Football Jalapeno Popper filling:

cubed cream cheese
jalapeno slices

Combine butter, flour and baking powder in the mixer on low until the butter is crumbly. Then mix in the cheese.
While the mixer is running on low slowly add the hot sauce until the dough just starts to hold together.

The first picture is the final texture of the dough that is for best molding.  The second picture is how it should look after the first step on mixing the flour, butter and baking powder until crumbly.

Place the ground chicken in a pan with the butter, vinegar and spices of your choice.  Add hot sauce to just below the level of the chicken.  Cook on medium heat and reduce the liquid until the consistency of sloppy joe mix.  If it is too liquid, it won't work well as a stuffing in the upcoming steps.  To make it less spicy, replace some of the hot sauce with water.

Both the Football Poppers and the Super Bowls start with basically the same form.

Form a dough ball.  I used a 3/4 oz scoop.
Push a divot in the ball with your thumb.
Pinch and work the dough into a rough bowl shape.

For Super Bowls:  Stop here and skip to the super bowl filling step.

For Footballs:
Elongate the bowl to start taking on a football shape.

Put in some chicken meat and sprinkle with Blue cheese.

OR put in jalapeno slices and cream cheese.

Seal them up!

Add some laces with a toothpick.  Make them fairly deep or they fill up when the dough puffs during cooking.

These bowls will hold one of every topping!  Layer in the jalapeno, cream cheese, buffalo chicken and top with blue cheese.

Place the Football Poppers and Super Bowls on an ungreased cooking sheet in a 425 degree oven for 8 minutes or until golden brown.

ENJOY!!!!!  These are best still warm.