There's a video on YouTube called Kílian Jornet Skiing and Running 7 Norwegian Summits in a Single Day, and at the start of the video, there's a scene where Kílian is at home, methodically packing everything he'll need for the 24-hour mission. He diligently weighs each piece of kit before stuffing it in his pack, carefully considers how much water he'll need for the day, but then when it comes time to think about nutrition, he just scratches his chin and says, 'For food... hmmm... I'll guess I'll take four Snickers.'
Four Snickers. Surely that's not enough. That's not even one Snickers for each summit! And this got me thinking... Maybe Snickers is Kílian's secret super-food... I ran this by professional alpinist Steve House, and he confirmed that Snickers definitely isn't Kílian's secret super-food. But it was too late—I'd already written 'How to make Extreme Snickers bars—aka Psycho-Snickerdoodles®' on a post-it and stuck it to my forehead so I wouldn't forget. Technically, Snickerdoodles are cookies, not chocolate bars, but Snickerdoodle sounds a bit like Snickers, and anyways, I'd already written it on a post-it note, so it was too late.
Here's how to make Psycho-Snickerdoodles®.
What You'll Need
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• ¼ cup of water
• 1 cup of light corn syrup
• 1 cup of peanut butter (smoove)
• 2 cups of milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup of chopped salted peanuts
• ½ cup of raisins
• ½ cup of goji berries
• ½ cup of crushed Pop Rocks or similar popping candy
• 1 cup of packed brown sugar
• 1 cup of you better be still reading
• ½ cup of evaporated milk
• ¼ cup of unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
Instructions
1. Take one of your many 9 by 13-inch baking pans down from your baking stuff cupboard and line it with baking paper or aluminum foil. Grease that paper/foil lightly with butter, oil, or cooking spray.
2. Grab a saucepan and combine the sugar, corn syrup, and water. Place the saucepan over medium heat and stir that shit until it all dissolves. Then get your thermometer (a cooking thermometer, not the one you use to see if your dog is sick) and dunk it in. Keep cooking and stirring until the temp hits 120°C.
3. Get yourself a bowl and combine the peanut butter and 1/4 cup of evaporated milk, and then pour the hot stuff on the stove into that peanut butter mixture, stirring until it's all combined. This is your nougat. Pour it into your pan and spread evenly.
4. Now, in another saucepan, combine the brown sugar, butter, and the remaining 1/4 cup of evaporated milk over medium heat. Again, stir that shit until it dissolves. Then drop your dirty dog's thermometer in and keep stirring until you hit 115°C. Now you've got yourself some caramel, buddy. Right on.
5. Remove the caramel from the heat, stir in the vanilla essence, and pour it evenly on your nougat layer in the pan. Then sprinkle half your nuts, raisins, goji berries, and Pop Rocks evenly across the top.
6. Next, you want to melt your chocolate chips. You can do this in the microwave if you don't care what microwaves do to your insides (it's not good). Otherwise, you can melt it in a heatproof jug resting inside a saucepan filled with water on the stove. Once the chocolate is melted, go ahead and pour it into the tray, using a spatula to get an even covering.
7. Sprinkle your remaining nuts, raisins, goji berries, and Pop Rocks on top of the chocolate, and then throw the pan into the refrigerator for a couple of hours. When the Psycho-Snickerdoodle® slab is set, use a knife to cut that sucker up into a bunch of rectangles, and set your sights on a mountain near you!
