Pimp That Snack

Fruit Pastille Lolly

by Phil Evans 9 photos Rated 91% 2,356 votes when voting closed

I’m yet another one who saw the F-word and fancied a go at this myself!
After consulting some people at work, we decided we wanted to make something challenging for the title of "biggest ever pimp."
At this point I must thank Wayne, who out of nowhere said "wnat about an ice lolly," and that was that.

We narrowed it down to a fruit pastille-lolly, being a nice shape, and easy on the eye.

The ingredients came to around £3.42:

5 assorted colours of cordials
Green food colouring
Water

Bottles of squash, two bags of ice cubes and a stockpot on a garden bench

I searched for a suitable container to freeze the whole lolly in, which proved a little ambitious, so in the end I just dusted off the old pressure cooker and decided to do it in 5 bits.

It was easy enough to start with, put the cordial in the pan, dilute it, put it in the freezer.

Deep green squash mixture filling a large stockpot on the kitchen worktop

The pot of green liquid wedged into a chest freezer among the frozen food packets

I had absolutely no idea how long it was gonna take to freeze, but after a day, it seemed like it was going to take forever. Poking it and breaking the ice presumably doesnt help, but curiosity couldn’t be helped !!
So, around 64 hours later, the first bit was done. Run the pan under a hot tap for a while, and hey presto… a big block of coloured ice.

Frozen yellow disc turned out beside its pot, a coffee mug alongside for scale

Only 4 more to go….
And about another 2 weeks…

So I popped the block in a bin bag, left it in the freezer, and started part 2. As it had taken so long to freeze, I decided to use crushed ice to help it on its way (pushing the cost up another £3).
All the way up until there were 4 blocks of ice, and the 5th freezing. At this point, there was definately not a lot of room for our food.

But now, I hadn’t really thought through how I was gonna get the stick in the middle. I decided to use a drill….

Power drill boring a stick hole down into the frozen yellow disc inside a bucket

So one sunny afternoon, after driling 5 big holes in 5 big blocks of ice (and having lost the feeling in my fingers) it was all ready to put together).
It had taken 17 days of endless waiting to get to this point, so I was hoping it was going to be worth it…

Five coloured frozen discs on the patio with the wooden stick and a real lolly across them

And here it is…

Assembled giant lolly on its plank of a stick beside a normal lolly and its box

It is 15cm in diameter, and 85cm long ( 1 metre 15cm with the stick).
The colours aren’t perfect, but it got quite a lot of attention and gasps from the neighbours!

Man holding the five-colour lolly upright on the drive, car behind for scale

After holding up, and wondering how heavy it was, I decided to get the bathroom scales out and weigh it.

The lolly balanced on bathroom scales reading 19.6 kilos

In summary….
It took 17 days. It weighs 20kgs (3 stone). Its 1.2 metres tall.
And it tastes good!

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