With absolutely no baking required, no fancy ingredients and only the most basic of utensils needed it's the perfect choice for everyone, from the novice that burns water to the expert looking for something simple to mix things up. Plus, it's so open to personal preference and adaptation that it's impossible not to love it!
Given the time of year I've had a play around with my traditional recipe and given it an Easter twist, changing to white chocolate, adding mixed dried berries and topping with Smarties mini eggs. The original has been upgraded: say hello to my Rocky Road Nests!
Ingredients:
600g white chocolate
150g dried fruit
45g honeycomb pieces
50g mini marshmallows
50g Rice Crispies
75g shortbread
3 full-sized white Lion bars
2 packs Smarties mini eggs
A couple of notes on the ingredients: the joy of Rocky Road is that the ingredients are really entirely up to you. Although I've used specific ones above, feel free to swap them for others so that the flavours are exactly to your liking.
With the dried fruit, I found the perfect pack in Waitrose: this berry mix contains raisins, dried cranberries, cherries and blueberries, and I'd definitely recommend it! Again, if you're not a fan of them then merely make up 150g with a dried fruit of your choice.
In traditional Rocky Road, the full-sized chocolate bars are usually Mars / Snickers / Crunchie, but when using white chocolate it's difficult to find something similar. I found that normal supermarkets don't stock anything like them, so you'll need to try places like Poundland, Home & Bargains or B&M in order to find these sorts of limited edition / obscure end-of-line flavours of regular chocolate bars. The Lion bars I used were from Home & Bargains and all of the text on the packet was in Polish... It's worth searching for these things though - it pays off in the end!
Method:
Line a 12 hole deep bun tin with cupcake cases and clear a space in the fridge (rearranging my mum's highly organised fridge felt like a military operation...).
Melt the white chocolate either carefully in the microwave or in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.
Chop the shortbread and the Lion bars into small chunks.
Add all of the ingredients to the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly to ensure everything is liberally coated in chocolate.
Divide the mixture between the cases. I found a heaped scoop (using my Lakeland ice-cream scoop) was the perfect amount for 12 nests.
Top each nest with 3 Smarties mini eggs for a pop of colour, and transfer to the fridge for a couple of hours to set.
Once hard, remove from the fridge and serve. Enjoy!
They'll be rock hard directly from the fridge, so it's best to leave them to one side to soften up before eating, unless you want to risk chipping a tooth...
Thanks to the inclusion of the shortbread, these Rocky Road Nests are more biscuity than normal so they might not be exactly what you're expecting! That being said, though, they've gone down extremely well at home, particularly once the confusion had passed...
The white chocolate keeps the nests light and creamy, and with so many different ingredients each mouthful has a myriad of different textures and flavours. It's a chocolate lover's paradise!
What do you think of these Rocky Road Nests? Could you be persuaded to give them a go this Easter weekend? Do let me know in the comments below!
[N.B. this post contains affiliate links to Lakeland products.]
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