Pimp That Snack

Behemoth Bourbon

by Jane Langdon 11 photos Rated 86% 906 votes when voting closed

As a child I adored bourbon biscuits, I remember being very embarrassed as a teenager hearing my mother telling someone “Oh she’s anyone’s for a bourbon”.

As a thirty-something adult, wife and mother of two I still love bourbon biscuits so they were my obvious first-pimp choice. Being a relatively accomplished baker of biscuits already I didn’t have to do too much research into the best dough for the biscuit part – it’s Saint Delia’s gingerbread man recipe only without the ginger and with the addition of plenty of cocoa powder. It won’t be man shaped either but I guess it’ll be man-sized 😉

I have no idea of the cost of this pimp as I had all the ingredients at home anyway.

First step was to gather together the ingredients – I have these all at home anyway so I didn’t even need to leave the house 😀 (except for an emergency trip to a neighbour as I didn’t think I could pimp a bourbon without any cocoa!!!)

Flour, icing sugar, cocoa, treacle, golden syrup, butter and a packet of Bourbon creams on the worktop

I set about making the dough: measure, stir, melt, add butter, stir, melt,

Lumps of butter stirred into dark melted treacle in a saucepan on the hob

add flour, sneeze, stir,

Flour being folded into the dark chocolate mixture in the saucepan with a wooden spoon

kneed etc

A large mound of brown biscuit dough resting on the speckled grey worktop

The dough ended up looking scarily like something we’d seen this morning as we walked across a field of horses while geocaching ( www.geocaching.com )

In the interests of accuracy I decided to take measurements of a bourbon so the end result would be as authentic as possible

A hand holds a clear ruler across an ordinary Bourbon biscuit to record its dimensions

I rolled the dough out to the required size and cut out the two rectangles – if you’re interested a ‘normal’ bourbon is a little over twice as long as it’s wide at about 2.9cm x 6cm – mine ended up being 15cm x 32cm approx.

The cut shapes were carefully transferred to baking trays lined with baking parchment ready to go in the oven. I decided on a slow baking at 160C so they cooked evenly.

Two baking trays lined with parchment, each holding a huge flat rectangle of dark biscuit dough

I had no idea how long they would take to cook as I have never baked anything on this scale before (funnily enough!)

I took the biscuits out part way through cooking to poke in the regulation 10 holes

Pricking rows of holes into the giant slab of dough with a ring-handled skewer

and cut in the wording before returning them to the oven to finish baking

The word BOURBON scored into the dough slab with a knife, holes already pricked around it

Once they were finished baking I took them out of the oven to cool and set about making a filling for them. I decided on a mixture of butter icing and melted chocolate

Thick chocolate buttercream spread across one baked slab, ready for the second biscuit layer

The finished biscuit is an awesome sight and seriously dwarfs the original. I weighed them both – original bourbon: a very tasty 13g, my pimped behemoth bourbon: a pimptastic 1355g – over 104 times heavier!!!

The finished giant Bourbon on a chopping board with an ordinary Bourbon biscuit below for scale

Now all I have to do is explain to the rest of the family why they’ve got no tea! Pudding’s sorted though I guess. The boys look happy enough with their tea 😉

Two boys biting into opposite ends of the giant Bourbon, held between both their hands

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