Home: Deep Fried Mars Bar

The deep fried Mars Bar is a notoriously unhealthy example of deep fat frying. The recipe was dreamt up in Scotland, apparently at,

• Haven Chip Bar
  • Stonehaven
    • Aberdeen
      • Scotland

The recipe is simple a Mars Bar (manufactured by Mars Inc a multinational confectioner which was founded by Frank C. Mars) which is dipped in chip shop batter (used for fried fish + chips) and deep fried.

The recipe began as the media's half hearted social commentary on the unhealthy diet of the UK. While the recipe was viewed as more of a joke to begin with, the media's attention led to more chip shops offering the recipe and increased consumption.

The first media reports of the deep fried Mars Bar were in the mid nineteen nineties. Over fifteen years later it's still being consumed and sold UK wide in chip shops. Surveys have suggested it's still sold in greater regularity in Scottish chips shops, with around twenty percent selling it.

The Mars Bar itself was also first manufactured in the UK, in Slough, Berkshire. The bar is a chocolate covered combination of nougat and caramel. Mars Inc. are a US based company, but the son of founder Frank C. Mars, Forrest Mars, opened a factory in Slough in the 1930's. And it was he that developed the Mars Bar.

The dimensions of the bar and the amount of chocolate covering have been reduced in recent years. And there have been variations on the standard Mars Bar, such as the Mars Almond, Dark and Light, Ice Cream Bar, Gold, Midnight, Lite and World Cup.