Rocky road recipe: step-by-step picture guide

A pictorial guide to making this family favourite.

OK, this isn’t strictly speaking baking, but it's such an all-round people-pleaser of a recipe. I like to use gingernuts in my rocky road, which give it a spicy edge, but really any crunchy biscuit will do such as digestives, Rich Tea or even Oreos for a double chocolate hit.

It requires three hours cooling time in a fridge and makes 16 squares.

Choosing chocolate

If you can't find 60% cocoa content chocolate, use 200g 50% cocoa chocolate (most supermarket 'Belgian' dark chocolate is around this percentage), plus 200g 70% cocoa chocolate, and melt them together.

Variations

Turkish Road
Swap half the marshmallows for pieces of Turkish delight. 

Roman Road
For an Italian panforte-inspired twist, replace half the raisins with finely chopped crystallised orange peel. Use amaretti biscuits and add one teaspoon of ground cinnamon and ½ teaspoon of ground nutmeg, plus a pinch of ground cloves if you like.

You can find a printer-friendly version of this Rocky Road recipe here

Ingredients

Prep time: 10 mins | Cooling time: 3 hours

Step-by-step

1. Use a little butter to grease a 23cm shallow square tin or brownie pan, then line it with baking parchment.

2. To melt the chocolate, first half-fill a medium pan with water and bring it to a simmer. Break the chocolate into squares and cut the butter into pieces, then put them in a large heatproof bowl. Sit the bowl over the pan of water, making sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the water. This is sometimes called a bain marie or double boiler.

3. With the pan over a very low heat, let the chocolate and butter melt together, stirring now and again, until smooth and silky. Now stir in the syrup and salt and take the bowl off the heat. 

4. While you wait for the chocolate to melt, roughly chop any larger nuts (such as brazils, if there are some in your mix). Crush or break the biscuits into smaller chunks. Snip the marshmallows in half.

5. Scoop about eight tablespoons of the chocolate from the bowl and set aside. Toss all of the biscuit chunks, nuts, marshmallows and raisins, or whatever you are using, into the rest of the chocolate and stir well with a spatula until everything is well coated.

6. Spread the rocky road mixture into the tin, then add the ‘tarmac’: that is, spoon the reserved chocolate over the mixture to cover. It won’t be perfectly smooth, but that’s all part of the charm.

7. Let the rocky road chill in the fridge for about 3 hours, or longer if you like, until very firm. Remove from the tin, peel off the paper from the edges, cut into squares and dust with the icing sugar.

8. Store in the fridge or a cool place for up to three days.

Recipe taken from What to Bake & How to Bake it by Jane Hornby. Published by Phaidon, RRP £19.95.

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