The Walking Dead: Homemade Big Cat Bars

Homemade Big Cat Bars

I actually looked these up to see if they’re a real candy bar.  They’re not…if you were curious.

UPDATE: apparently they were a real chocolate bar back in the 80s/90s!  Thank you to Christine for letting me know!

In Season 4 Episode 15, as Carl and Michonne are walking down the train tracks, they have a competition to see who can balance on the rail line the longest.  Carl wins, but knowing that Big Cat Bars are Michonne’s favorite, offers to split it with her instead.

Carl: Is that really the last Big Cat?
Michonne: Oh, come on.
Carl: Hey, but you said winner’s choice.
Michonne: Go ahead, take it.  It’s yours.  You won it fair and square.
Carl (splits candy in two): Come on, we always share.
Michonne (smiles): Fork it over.

The recipe has a lot of slow, time-consuming steps, so I split it over the course of two days…today is Day 3, and I’m finally able to taste-test them!  If you don’t have anywhere to be, though, then you can get this recipe completed within a day.

On Day 1, I started off by separating sugar wafer cookies from each other.

The recipe calls for “single-layer vanilla sugar wafer cookies.”  I found vanilla wafer cookies, but they weren’t sugar wafers, which I’m pretty sure is something different.  And I found vanilla sugar wafer cookies, but they all had two cookies layered with cream in between.

So I painstakingly separated each of the cookies until I had 72 wafers.   This was probably the most time-consuming part, and hopefully you won’t need to deal with it!  If you do need to separate them out, though, then I recommend inserting a thin, sharp knife into the cream layer between the two wafer cookies to break them apart.

Once the cookies were ready, caramels and cream were melted together in a double boiler and spread in between the cookie layers – 3 cookie layers total, and 2 layers of caramel.

The caramel was still very sticky, and didn’t spread very well.  Instead of “spreading to cover the surface,” I put a large dollop smeared across the middle as best I could, and then I squished the cookies together so the caramel squeezed out the sides and covered more surface area.

Then the cookies were put into the fridge until the next day.

On Day 2, I got the double boiler started again so I could melt chocolate.  Once the chocolate was melted and puffed cereal was mixed in, the cold cookies were dipped into the chocolate mixture to coat, and left to harden on a baking sheet for several hours (or in my case, overnight).

The chocolate bars were very good!  Not as good as the Kit Kat bars they are based on, but delicious nonetheless!

Taste: 9/10

These were delicious!  Not the same as store-bought candy bars, but definitely a tasty treat.  I think the bittersweet chocolate overpowered the caramel a bit too much, and would probably try with milk chocolate instead next time.

Difficulty: Challenging

The caramel can be difficult to work with.  Even after it was melted, it was very thick and did not spread easily.

And using a double boiler is never a favorite of mine!

Cost: Above Average

You’ll need to purchase soft caramels, single-layer vanilla sugar wafer cookies, bittersweet chocolate, and puffed rice cereal.  You may need to purchase heavy cream as well.

Suggestion:

I found I didn’t need as much chocolate as is listed in the recipe – I recommend using less than suggested, and only melting more if needed.