Pimp That Snack
Language: English

Titanic Twiglet

by Jane Langdon 8 photos Rated 74% 264 votes when voting closed

You will need:

½ pint warm water
1tsp sugar
12g dry yeast
1lb strong white flour
2tbsp oil (olive is best but I didn’t have any)
1 tsp salt
a dollop of marmite

I decided to have a go at a savoury pimp as they are sadly lacking in numbers on PMS and decided what else to pimp but my all time favourite nibble – the twiglet!

First things first gather together the goodies – horror of horrors I have no twiglets in the house so will need to go shopping before I can take the obligatory comparison picture. A quick search GIMF (google is my friend) and up comes a picture to work from.

Bread flour, yeast, a jar of Marmite, sunflower oil and a jug of water by a mixing bowl

I decided to try this as a bread based nibble (will be more like a gnaw but you know what I mean!) I’m not sure the original twiglet is bread based but hey this is my pimp and I can do what I like with it!

For those of you not familiar with yeast cookery the best type of yeast is the stuff that you have to mix with water for a little while before you use it – the dry mix ‘fast action’ stuff is good but not as good. So into half a pint of warm water went a tablespoon of the yeast and a teaspoon of sugar (the sugar was feeling shy so didn’t make the picture)

Once the yeast had a good frothy head on it I weighed out the flour and added a teaspoon of salt (which I forgot to put in the original picture)

Flour weighed into a bowl on digital scales, a jug of frothy yeast water alongside

I then roughly mixed it together until it was almost dough-like

Shaggy just-mixed dough clinging together in the bottom of the mixing bowl

I then tipped it out on the work top and kneaded it until it felt all springy and elasticky.
Now the dough needs to rest for a while. What you do while the dough rests is up to you but I decided to have a sit down with a cuppa and a chunk of Saturday’s pimp – the behemoth bourbon.

A smooth ball of kneaded dough beside a Marmite jar, several times the jar's size

Once the dough had had a rest it was time to shape it into a twigletty kind of shape. I rolled out a long sausage and added a few lumps along the sides to give it that twiggy authenticity.

The dough rolled into a long knobbly twig shape running the length of a baking tray

Now it’s time for the dough to rise – I can’t face any more bourbon just yet so I’ll go and do something silly like housework!

The same dough twig after proving, noticeably fatter and overhanging the tray

After a slow baking (20 minutes at 180C) until crisp and browned it’s time to add the finishing touch – a liberal splodging of marmite. The marmite looked a bit pale so I decided to try returning it to the oven for about 5 minutes to cook the marmite to a darker colour.

The baked twig cooling on a wire rack, glossy under its brushed-on Marmite glaze

Comparison with the original: Tiny Twiglet: barely 1g; Titanic Twiglet: 538g! A twigtastic 538x heavier

The finished giant Twiglet on the worktop with one ordinary Twiglet beside it

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