rocky road - concocted by my good friend Katie!

Katie's made stunning Rocky Road (recipe here) - it looks so awesomely yum that I wanted to post the pic here - more encouragement for you! She managed to take pictures before eating it - that in itself guarantees extra brownie points...or extra rocky road points?

I'll check on exact nature of rocks and get back to you, but in the meantime let's make your mouth water...


Update: rocks were maltesers, marshmallows and glace cherries

The Gingerbread Men

This one is a quick one, and a bit of a cheat (but not really). My lovely manager at my last job got me a Gingerbread Man making kit for my 'secret' Santa, and making Gingerbread Men suddenly seemed a congruous indoor activity to the outdoor making of snowmen. Does that sentence make any sense?? The snow's gone to my head via my ears.

So anyhoo, here are my little lot.

I wish I'd had some different colours of icing, and maybe some brightly coloured, mini Smarties rather than these 'natural' 'normous ones. Yes, several of them have too many buttons, but this was the best way to cram chocolate bits on top.

Inside the cute box, in the image of a Gingerbread Man, was a packet of dry ingredients (flour, dried egg, bicarb, ground ginger...something else I can't remember), a sachet of golden syrup, a tube of black icing and those slightly odd non-Smarties.

All I had to do was tip out the dry ingredients, rub in 30g of butter 'til it resembled breadcrumbs, squeeze in the syrup, add 2tsps of cold water, squidge together, roll out, and voila: Gingerbread men!

Although this gave satisfying results in the form of baked goods, this didn't feel quite like baking for me - I quite enjoy all the measuring out and a certain amount of judging and concocting. But it was therapeutic nonetheless.

Regrettably, after my Menu For A Snowy Day, I couldn't possibly have fit a Gingerbread Man in my gob for dessert, so I'm going to munch one for breakfast and let you know how it tastes....

Report: hmm, quite tasty actually. Maybe could be a tiny bit more gingery, and perhaps have a little more chew. But it's not a bad biscuit!

A nice big slab of rocky road

Well at least, that's how it started out, until it'd been cut into manageable chunks, piled up high, then steadily devoured. Shame to chunk it up, being as it's meant to be a rocky ROAD, but I think about an inch square is enough to enjoy without feeling guilty - so guilt-free that you could have several small chunks.

I used Nigella Lawson's basic recipe and my own assorted chunks - say what you like about the lady, but she certainly knows her rocky road. My adapted recipe is below.

Ingredients:

125 soft unsalted butter

200g milk chocolate, broken into pieces

100g good quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces

3tbsp golden syrup

200g rich tea biscuits

arbitrary amount of:

mini marshmallows

Mars Planets

Maltesers

50g white chocolate to decorate

Method

1. Heat the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a microwaveable bowl, in said microwave. Keep microwave on 80% power and do 30seconds at a time to avoid burning/over heating chocolate. When melted, scoop out around 125ml of the mixture and set aside.

2. Put the biscuits into a plastic freezer bag and bash with a rolling pin until you have some crumbs and some, er, rocks. Give your other crunchy ingredients a bit of a bashing in the same manner.

3. Fold it all into the mixture, along with any squishy ingredients you might've chosen to use (raisins, glacé cherries, dates etc.)

4. Line a baking tin (approx. 24cm/9in square) with foil and tip in the mixture. Pour over the reserved non-chunky mixture and smooth the top with a spatula.

5. Refrigerate for around two hours, or overnight.

6. To serve, melt your small amount of white chocolate and drizzle over the top however you please. It might need a little re-chilling after this, but the cold rocky road should set it fairly quickly. Cut into squares or fingers or rhombuses or whatever you choose, stack up on a plate, and feed housewarming guests.

Other variations include Nigella's Christmas rocky road, using gingernut biscuits and a higher proportion of dark chocolate for a more 'grown up' feel, adding nuts, only using marshmallows...as you will see if you Google "rocky road recipe", one of the joys of rocky road is that nearly anything goes and proportions are flexible. What could be easier?

The picture above and pictures of empty plates is all I have, so this will have to do, but I can guarantee yours will look tempting, no matter what you bung in.