Sunday 16 June 2013

Rocky road bars

These are seriously addictive. Make lots and prepare for people to ask you for the recipe. Traditionally rocky road has cherry pieces in it but you can swap this for raisins, or leave out the fruit entirely. (Does fruit really have any right to a place in a chocolatey snack? Some people feel quite strongly about this). You can add in pretty much anything – crushed up Crunchie bars would work well, but here I've made mine with Rolo chunks and raisins.

Fills a 7x7inch pan, which makes roughly 12 large bars

Gather your equipment
Essential equipment:  small baking pan lined with greaseproof/baking paper, microwave-proof mixing bowl, smaller bowl, scales, mixing spoon, Ziploc bag
Optional equipment: rolling pin, spatula, measuring spoons
  • Use a roughly 7in x 7in pan if you can; I used a 6in x 8.5in pan here, which made quite thinly spread bars
  • You can use a clean wine bottle as a rolling pin
Gather your ingredients
For this recipe you'll need: 150g dark chocolate, 60g butter/margarine, 1.5tbsp golden syrup, 100g digestives/rich tea biscuits, 50g marshmallows
Optional: extra add-ins (such as rolos, crunchie bars, raisins, cherries, chopped nuts) or decorations (such as vermicelli sprinkles, icing sugar)
  • Mini marshmallows are much easier to use in this recipe but normal marshmallows will also work
  • I used a mix of dark and milk chocolate in this recipe, just because it was what I had to hand
Prepare to bake
Weigh out your marshmallows and biscuits. If you’re using regular marshmallows, chop them up into smaller pieces. Take roughly half the biscuits and crush them to fine crumbs using the Ziploc bag and rolling pin/wine bottle, or simply use your hands. Break the other half into small chunks. Measure the chocolate, butter and syrup straight into the microwave-proof bowl. If adding any extras, get them ready now too.
Melt together the chocolate, butter and syrup
Microwave in short 30 second bursts, stirring each time, until everything is smoothly melted together and smelling very appetising. Alternatively, melt on the stove in a heavy-based saucepan, using a gentle heat.
Reserve some of the melted chocolate
Remove a few spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture and set aside in the extra small bowl. This will be used to give the bars a nice smooth finish later – if you don’t mind messy presentation, feel free to skip this step.
Add the biscuits and marshmallows, stir, then pour into the pan
Stir the biscuits, marshmallows and optional extras into the melted chocolate, then pour it all into your baking pan and smooth down into the corners. Pour the reserved chocolate on top and smooth down again. Use a spatula, if you’ve got one. If decorating with sprinkles, add them now.
Chill and cut
Leave in the fridge for roughly 2 hours (or if you’re impatient like I was, put the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes or so). Then use a large knife to cut into as many bars as you are willing to share. Dust with icing sugar at this point if you like. 

Here’s an up-close shot of the gorgeous rocky road babies:

And here are some I've made before… you can drizzle or pipe over some white chocolate as extra decoration. Doubling the recipe or using a smaller pan will obviously give you fatter slices.


Recipe: - enough to fill a 7x7in pan
150g dark chocolate
60g butter/margarine
1.5tbsp golden syrup
100g digestives/rich tea biscuits, half crushed, half broken-up
50g chopped/mini marshmallows

  1. Melt together the chocolate, butter and syrup
  2. Reserve a few spoonfuls of the chocolate mix and set aside
  3. Stir the biscuits and marshmallows into the chocolate mixture
  4. Pour into a lined baking tin and smooth down
  5. Pour over the reserved chocolate, smooth down again
  6. Refrigerate for 2 hours, then cut into chunks
Recipe originally by Nigella Lawson
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2 comments:

  1. Can't wait to try this out - Looks so yummy !

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    Replies
    1. You really should - they're so ridiculously tasty for so little work :)

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