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Pimpnic

by Arturo Barracooda 14 photos Rated 83% 290 votes when voting closed

For generations, the Picnic has been the daddy of the ‘knobbly’ chocolate bar industry. As children, we would marvel at this chewy, gooey, crispy, nutty, raisiny delight, all covered in chocolate. The question has to be, how does a snack this good, end up looking like something out of the wrong end of a dog? I believe they call this its rustic charm. As good as all these ingredients are, another question needs to be asked… How can such a veritable feast only weigh in at a measly 48.5 grams?

Urgent steps had to be taken to right this chocolate-covered injustice.

Enter the Pimpnic!!!

The word Pimpnic in the site’s bubble lettering, dripping with jam

Firstly, you’ll need :

A pack of caramel wafers
Loads of toffee (800g)
Milk chocolate
Rice Crispies
Chocolate-coated peanuts
Chocolate-coated raisins
A Cadbury Picnic for reference

Ingredients on a worktop: rice snaps, chocolate raisins and peanuts, Tunnock's caramel wafers, a Picnic bar

1. Lay out caramel wafers to the size you want. The bigger, the better-That’s the pimp way!!

Caramel wafer bars lined up end to end on parchment to form the long base

2. Melt some toffee to glue the wafers together. The best way to do this, we found was to give the toffee short bursts in the microwave, stirring continuously. At this point, it would be only fair to mention that chocolate-coated wafers are poor for this part of the recipe. As the hot toffee melts the chocolate, the toffee slides off and doesn’t stick to anything, except to your fingers. This was remedied by pouring loads of toffee onto the wafers.

Spreading caramel along the row of wafer bars with a table knife

Scattering crisped rice by hand over the caramel-covered wafer base

3. Add your first layer of crispy bits and put in fridge. After a short while, it should turn from a wobbly mess into a stiff mess.

The caramel base fully covered in crisped rice, knife and wafer offcuts scattered around

4. Melt some more toffee. Now the crispy bits are in place, the toffee will stick to your Pimpnic easier. By this stage you’ll start feeling justly pleased with yourself.

Pouring more melted caramel from a bowl over the rice-covered bar

The long bar seen from above, coated in caramel and crisped rice on parchment

5. Oh no, not more toffee!! Yes, you’ve guessed it. Now it’s time for the chocolate peanuts and raisins. Put back in fridge.

A second bowl of caramel poured along the length of the bar

Chocolate raisins and peanuts pressed into the caramel along the top of the bar

6. Time to melt you chocolate. We first tried the microwave. After narrowly avoiding a Three Mile Island-style disaster, we resorted to more traditional, non-nuclear chocolate melting methods.

Stirring a bowl of melted chocolate beside the assembled bar, ready for coating

7. Pour your safely-melted chocolate over the Pimpnic. Make sure it is totally covered. And…

Melted chocolate poured from a bowl over the whole length of the bar

8. Gasp at your creation. As you can see below, we have the wimpnic, and above we have the PIMPNIC.

Finished chocolate-covered bar measured against a tape measure, with a normal Picnic alongside

In this cross-section, I think you’ll agree, the Pimpnic truly lives up to its name.

Cut end of the giant bar showing wafer layers, caramel and rice, beside a piece of the original

Nuff love to all pimps out there…

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