Pimp That Snack

Dairylea Triange

by George and Jane Faux 9 photos Rated 76% 348 votes when voting closed

Ingredients:

3x300g tubs of dairylea
1 box of dairylea triangles for research
lots of tinfoil
an old cereal box
red ribbon

Total cost: £5.01

Total calories: 2600 calories

Still flushed with the success of my first pimping foray, Scotch Egg 2, I decided to stick with the savoury pimping theme. And what better snack to pimp than every child’s favourite, the eat-it-straight-from-the-fridge-then-lick-the-tinfoil-clean dairylea triangle?

Three tubs of Dairylea spread, a box of triangles, a foil roll and a flattened cereal box

I bought a whole load of dairylea, just over a kilogram of the stuff to be precise, and put it in the fridge. About a week later, when I was fed up of not being able to fit ‘normal’ food in the fridge, I decided it was time to pimp the triangle. First off I weighed and measured a standard triangle (weight = 23g, length = 5cm, width = 4cm, height = 2cm, volume = 20 cubic cm). I then indulged in some very painful calculations to work out what size my pimped up, 46 times heavier triangle needed to be (weight = 1050g, length = 19cm, width = 14.5cm, height = 6.7cm, volume = 920 cubic cm).

Handwritten volume sums with a calculator, ruler and one normal Dairylea triangle on the worktop

I reckoned that trying to encase a huge blob of oozing dairylea in flimsy tinfoil was likely to end in disaster, so in true Blue Peter style I used an old cereal box to form the basis of my triangle wrapper.

Card triangle template, scissors, ruler and foil roll beside the finished foil-covered triangular mould

With my wrapper constructed it was a pretty straightforward job to scoop the contents of the tubs of dairylea into it.

Soft cheese being spooned from a tub into the foil-lined triangular mould

And to my mathematical gratification there was just enough space for the 7 triangles which weren’t required for the obligatory big snack – little snack shot at the end.

Spare cheese triangles pressed into the top of the filled mould, knife handle sticking out

I finished off my glorious snack with a pimped up red ribbon and a final layer of tinfoil. Behold!

Finished foil triangle with hand-drawn Pimp My Dairylea lid, a normal triangle in front for scale

Then came the moment of truth…was it a true dairylea triangle?

Close-up of the red ribbon tab being pulled to open the giant foil triangle

Hand lifting the labelled lid off, revealing the smooth pale cheese filling the giant triangle

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for, which required me to hack through cardboard and gooey cheese with a bread knife.

Giant triangle cut in two showing solid pale cheese, with a normal triangle halved beside it

Of course, having destroyed my triangle I ended up scooping all the dairylea back into the tubs I scooped it out of in the first place. And because I’m an ethical snack-pimper who doesn’t like to waste food, I’ve got as much dairylea back in the fridge as I did before I started (minus the bits that stuck to the foil and the original mini-triangle, which I ate). My friends and family are going to get mightily fed up of dairylea sandwiches…

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