Pimp That Snack

Original Curly Wurly

Five packets of Sainsbury's dairy toffees and several bars of milk chocolate, the raw ingredients

Ingredients:
5 packets of Sainsbury’s toffees
6 packets of Sainsbury’s chocolate

Our first task was to strip the toffees of their bling. We unwrapped all five packets of toffees and put them in a glass bowl ready to be melted. In good ol’ fashion style we placed the bowl over pan of boiling water to prevent the toffee from curdling.

Unwrapped toffees heaped in a bowl next to the pile of discarded gold wrappers

Toffees melting to smooth caramel in a bowl over a pan, stirred with a wooden spoon

Precision and accuracy are both essential skills for any reputable pimp, so before melting the toffee we used some VERY technical equipment to draw out a template for our curly wurley.

A real Curly Wurly as template on greaseproof paper, with steel rule, set square and pencil

As soon as the toffee started to go gloopy we carefully poured and shaped it into the template, then left it to set. It was too big to fit in the fridge, so it took a good couple of hours before it was back to its original state.

Spooning molten toffee from a wooden spoon onto baking paper to build the long lattice

The toffee lattice cooling along the kitchen worktop, running most of its length

We then melted 4 bars of chocolate in the microwave, giving it a quick stir every 30 seconds.

Broken chocolate chunks being stirred in a bowl on the hob, toffee lattice waiting behind

Once the chocolate had melted we poured it over the toffee curly wurley. We found that using a spoon and allowing the chocolate to run gave a more polished finish than using a spatula to “evenly” spread the chocolate.

Ladling melted chocolate along the toffee lattice on baking paper, a normal bar beside it

Once the top coat of chocolate had set we melted the remaining 2 bars, again in the microwave. We then used a pastry brush to apply a thin layer of chocolate to the base of the curly wurly.

Close-up of chocolate flooding over the toffee lattice and its cut-out holes

Two hands lifting the finished chocolate-coated lattice bar by both ends, spread wide apart

Once the chocolate had set a bit, (about 10 minutes later…) we had to print the pattern to the base of the curly wurly – PIMP PERFECTION!
To do this we used a fork to draw the horizontal lines and then a wooden BBQ Skewer to add the vertical lines.

Out-of-focus close-up of set chocolate marked with a fine criss-cross pattern

The full-length toffee lattice on baking paper with a normal Curly Wurly alongside for scale

Total length: 102cm

More like this