Life is one hell of a rocky road, so you may as well eat chocolate...

Q: What does a Hampstead Baker do when the oven is broken?

A: Experiment with the creation of Rocky Road. 

I have long been fascinated by the slabs of chocolatey biscuit treats you often see in the front counters of cafes country-wide. I think this fascination stems from a cafe I frequented during my university years (whose name I forget and extensive googling for which does not locate) which had the widest array of every type of biscuity-slab you might ever possibly find in their window. This being the case, I am surprised to find myself saying I have never until this day attempted to make any of these things. Possibly because they are ubiquitous and why should one attempt to make something so readily available, but probably because no baking is necessary and wherefore art one a Hampstead Baker if one is merely melting and refrigerating? This being said, my oven is broken and so I find myself in the melting and refrigerating stage of sweet-treat making and I must say it is an unexpectedly satisfying activity.

Be warned! Rocky Road is not a cheap creation and the more money you put into the chocolate you use, the better and more delicious your product will be...

 

You will need: 400g best quality dark chocolate (green and blacks is the best really, let's face it)

100 g mini marshmallows or full sized ones cut in quarters

200g rich tea biscuits 

3 tablespoons golden syrup

125g unsalted butter + about 20g more

Buying the ingredients for this recipe is fun as you look pretty much like either someone throwing a child's birthday party or a really useless contestant on Ready Steady Cook.

You do NOT need an oven, but you DO need a hob and a refrigerator.

Crush your rich tea biscuits using a rolling pin. It's good to have a mixture of decent sized bitey bits and some crumbs for textural purposes. 

Check out my silver nail polish, dear Readers. (These details are important.)

Melt 300g of the chocolate with 125g butter and the golden syrup. Melt it slowly over a v low heat. The saucepan I used was too small - would have been much less messy in a bigger pan as you do all your mixing in the same pan.  Simultaneously, melt the other 100g chocolate with the 20g extra of unsalted butter and leave to cool - this will be poured onto the top of the Rocky Road to smooth over the surface. Rather like laying the tarmac over the rough road. (Clearly, I have experience in the art of road surfacing.)

Fold the biscuits and then the marshmallows using a spatula into the original melted chocolate mix (the one with golden syrup). The mixture won't look beautiful but more like the rocky road surface after which it is named! 

Scoop the mixture into a foil lined brownie tray and smooth the surface as much as you can. 

Then pour the extra melted chocolate all over the top allowing it to fill in all the ruts and ridges of your ridiculously rocky road. Pop it in the fridge and leave it to chill over night. 

The following day, cut your creation into small squares (you may need to dip your knife in boiling water to help you cut through the dense chocolate) and drench in icing sugar. Serve with strong, hot tea to very hungry/sugar craving individuals. It is incredibly rich and gooey and not really for the faint hearted. 

  Having made my first Rocky Road I am slightly taken aback by what a long process it is to make something so apparently effortless and simple. There may not be very much skill in melting chocolate and stirring in some biscuits, but an element of patience is required (along with foresight) seeing as these have to be made a day in advance to be enjoyed - or at the very least in the morning to be eaten in the afternoon. Equally, for something that manages to cost about a pound in the shops, making these choclate-bars/biscuits/*things* is not an exactly economically viable day to day activity BUT there is something pleasing about having made it from scratch rather than merely consuming it. 

 Definitely a recipe to keep hold of and bring out on those occasions where you need to be reminded that however rocky the road might seem, there is always chocolate around the corner...

 Love and biscuits,
Silver Whimsy x

Back to Baking... Chocolate Chip Cookies (featuring alliteration)

Dearest Readers, 

Well, as promised I am back and baking!

This is a super-easy recipe for the super-softest-squidgiest-srcummiest (told ya there'd be alliteration) chocolate chip cookies on the planet. It's a fail safe recipe for one of those 'I desperately need something sweet and home made' moments, but when you don't completely fancy baking and icing a cake. 

That's the beauty of cookies; once they're made they're ready to be eaten. 

So. Without further a do, how to make Chocolate Chip Cookies in Six Simple Steps. 

(Are you enjoying the alliteration?)

The all important ingredients. 

What you need: 

100g best quality (pref Green & Blacks) dark chocolate or a mixture of dark and milk depending on how sweet you can take it! 

125g unsalted butter, gently melted

100g caster sugar

75g soft brown sugar

1 organic, free range egg

vanilla extract to taste (I use half a teaspoon)

150g plain flour]

1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder (preferably magic)

An oven at 180 (fan assisted, 190 not fan assisted)

Step One: Mise en place, mise en place, mise en place! 

Heat the oven, weigh out all your ingredients, melt the butter, line your baking sheets. 

This is my Magic Baking Powder. It was a WONDERFUL gift from a friend - it has TRANSFORMED my baking! 

;

Step Two: 
Weigh the sugars together and mix them up, add the melted butter and mix with a wooden spoon. It looks like this - don't be alarmed! It gets more attractive soon...

Step Three: Add the vanilla essence and egg to the sticky, fluid sugar and butter mixture and beat together with your wooden spoon. The mixture becomes thicker and glossier.       

                       Step Four: sieve the flour and baking powder together into the mixture and then fold in quickly with a large silver spoon until just mixed. The mixture will still be slightly sloppy. 

Step Five: add the chocolate chips to the mixture and stir together. (In this batch I used a mixture of milk and dark choc.) Spoon tablespoon fulls of the mixture onto your lined baking trays and put in the oven. 

I do recommend that you aim to make each cookie the same size, as this helps with the cooking process. 

Bake for 8-10 mins, but check after 8 as they turn very quickly. They're done when your kitchen smells of cookies and there is a slightly crackled sugary finish to the golden mouthfuls of delish. 

Cookies going in the oven...

 Step Six: Take out of the oven and move on to a wire rack to cool as soon as you can! This cooling tray belonged to my Grandma and I LOVE the fact that it has squares and sometimes makes a pattern on the bottom of biscuits (more alliteration).

 EAT AND ENJOY. 

Fondest regards,
Whimsy x


Amusing anecdote:

I once baked these cookies for newly moved-in neighbours and went to take them round on a Sunday mid-morning. They thought I was really weird and I kept repeating my name over and over again in embarrasment but never managed to work out what their names were. So I suggest when you bake them, you keeo them and eat them all yourself!