Pimp That Snack

OTT Cherry Ripe

by #1 & TOTT 13 photos Rated 87% 278 votes when voting closed

For those of you uninitiated into the gastronomic feast that is this little bar, a brief history and description. Made by Cadbury’s in Australia, due to the buying out of the original manufacturer, a company called MacRobertson’s in the 1960’s, Cherry Ripe is, and i quote, ‘uniquely Australian. Its special combination of cherries, coconut and dark chocolate establishes it as a firm favourite with generations of families. ‘Cherry Ripe’, as it is known today, is now Cadbury Australia’s best-selling chocolate bar.

The original MacRobertson’s version:

Vintage illustrated chocolate bar wrapper in red and cream, half covered by the site logo

Sadly, the intrepid wannabe pimpers had to put their creation on hold for another week as they first had to undertake the onerous task of flying off to far north Queensland, picking up a campervan, spending 5 days trekking thru steaming rainforests, across palm-fringed beaches as well as snorkelling with the multi-coloured inhabitants (errrr fish, not their fellow travellers aboard the Osprey V…) on the Great Barrier Reef…. it was absolute torture. (pic to prove it)

Returning home with sunburn and a dogged sense of purpose, they forged their way thru the throngs of happy shoppers in Westfield Shopping Town, Burwood, on a mission and with a song on their still salty lips, ‘a pimping we will go!!’

Down to business:

Ingredients:

500g icing sugar
150g shredded coconut (much more manly than the girly desiccated variety)
5 (or so) tsps of cherry essence (actually, cherry brandy essence, couldn’t find the normal stuff anywhere, even in DJ’s amazing food hall – poor show DJ)
a (large) splash or two of red food colouring
200g of condensed milk
500g Nestlé’s club chocolate
175g glace cherries
1 cherry ripe (and a bag of mini’s to provide extra size comparison and sustenance)
several bottles of delicious amber nectar, AKA Blue Tongue lager

Cost: Aus $18.02 (approx 7.20 squid at current xchange rates)
Calories: a scary 6500

Shredded coconut, glace cherries, condensed milk, icing sugar and Club bars laid out with a normal Cherry Ripe

First – the creation of a mould. Inspired by the ingenuity of other pimpers, we used a size 9 (Aussie sizing, Big-Foot i am NOT!!) shoe box lid, which, when cunningly cut up and reconstructed resulted in a mould of dimensions 32 x 7 x 2cm (genuine Cherry Ripe 13.5 x 3 x 1cm) which was then lined with foil.

Hands scoring cardboard with a craft knife and steel ruler to build the bar mould

Easy life so far – time for a beer.

Now the guts.
Icing sugar into bowl, blokey coconut and sickly sweet cherries added

Tipping glace cherries from a plastic bowl into a mixing bowl of icing sugar

Things started to get messy when condensed milk (to which colouring and flavouring had been added) gets mixed in

Cherries part-stirred into the icing sugar, turning the bowl of mixture bright pink

– a tad too slack so extra shredded blokeyness and remainder of cherries added… elbow grease just wasn’t enough to mix what was now beginning to resemble pink concrete with red bits in, so additional assistance applied in the form of trusty heavy-duty kitchen cement mixer…

Desiccated coconut and more cherries added to the pink filling, electric beaters resting in the bowl

Looked good…. but… we didn’t just want it to LOOK good, so a pre-taste was vital…

Two spoons of pink coconut filling, each topped with a chunk of chocolate, held up for tasting

It tasted even better with a mouthful of long, curly hair…. Yum!!!

Into the mould goes the pink cherry cheekiness and then into the fridge to harden it up

Pink coconut filling pressed flat into the long foil-lined cardboard mould

Out of mould and melted chocolate applied

Melted chocolate spread with a spatula over the pink filling in its foil mould

spread, and back into the fridge goes the mammoth mother … (the bar, readers, NOT me!!!)

The mould filled level with a smooth layer of chocolate, left to set

More melted chocolate (beer and wine), but something was missing…. the unwrapping of the genuine article reveals the characteristic ridges atop Cadbury Australia’s Best Selling Chocolate Bar … a bit of crafty baking parchment origami (eat you hearts out Steve and Megumi Biddle) by #1 and ‘BINGO!!!’ RidgesRus!!!

Piping ridges of chocolate along the coated giant bar, a normal Cherry Ripe alongside for scale

More refrigeration, more beer, more wine…. time for bed…

And here you have it, in all it’s marathon proportions and glory – The ‘Crikey, what a beaut!!!’ revealed.

Final weigh-in: OTT Cherry ripe – 900g. (Genuine Cherry Ripe, 55g, funsize, 20g)

Finished giant bar with a normal Cherry Ripe, a miniature one and two coins for scale

And finally, the obligatory cross-section…

Cut ends of the giant, normal and mini bars showing the bright pink cherry-coconut centre

Admittedly slightly paler in colour, giving it a rather girly appearance…. but nothing girly about the taste – oh no, your average full-blooded Aussie bloke would trade-in his AFL season ticket for one of these babies!!!

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