It is Cake Sale Day at the little one’s nursery today to raise money for the nursery. So my contribution is this Rocky Road Slice and an awful admission, which I will tell you about at the end of this post.
I have completely made this recipe up this morning so I don’t know if it should really be called Rocky Road at all. Â To be honest it’s not something I would choose to eat myself, it is overly sweet for my tastes, but I think the children will like it.
I have used what I have in my cupboards so feel free to use whatever you have in yours. Â Replace the cranberries with sultanas or raisins if you like, use another biscuit rather than digestives – you get the idea.
50g dark chocolate
50g milk chocolate
25g butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
25g mini marshmallows
50g dried cranberries
4 digestive biscuits (Graham Crackers), crumbled
25g Rice Crispies (puffed rice cereal)
30g milk chocolate for drizzling over the top (optional)
Method
Melt the dark and milk chocolate, butter and syrup together in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water.  Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir well to combine  and add the rest of the ingredients, mixing well.
Line a 20cm square tin with clingfilm and pour the mixture in.  Level the top, pressing down well.  Melt the milk chocolate, if you are using it, and drizzle over the top. Place in the fridge to set.  Mine took about 1½ hours this morning.
Cut into squares.
Now for my awful admission. Â My other contribution will be Double Chocolate Cookies made from a box mix – I know, shock horror. Â Believe me, I am struggling with this myself. Â I was given a box of it and I was in a quandary as to what I should do. Â I have promised myself that I will try not to waste any food, so putting it in the bin was out of the question. Â Then I worried that I may be becoming an awful food snob. I looked at the ingredients – flour, light brown sugar, sugar,(yes, sugar is listed twice), fat reduced cocoa powder, natural flavouring and raising agent. Â I was reassured by this list, this is what I would normally put into cookies, so they can’t be too bad. Â I just had to contribute the butter and egg yolk.
Anyway, I made them and they are OK, they don’t taste as good as if I had got out the flour, sugar and cocoa out of the cupboard. Â There seems to be a lot more sugar in these than I would have put in and I think the cocoa is poor quality. Â So, there you have it, my verdict is that these ready to bake kits might be OK if it gets someone baking that wouldn’t otherwise touch it with a barge pole. Â But, you can definitely make tastier biscuits if you select the best ingredients and the right ratio of sugar.
All in all, I don’t know if it is an awful admission or if I have just become a terrible food snob, but a famous brand of cookie mix did not go in the bin and the cookies will be taken to  the cake sale.  I might just anonymise the plate though :).
We have all used the “box mix” before, so please don’t feel guilty at all. However I know when I have done it in the past, I worry that people might think that the end result is my work and that it is not as nice as they were hoping.
🙂 Mandy
I hold my hands up too – I’ve used ready to bake kits before, but all I get is ‘they’re ok but not as good as the real thing’ which then makes me feel good that my own is better but bad for taking the easy option. Can’t win!
Come on Kath, no one but us will know about the cookie mix. Besides they always come in handy for bake sales. I’m sure the little kiddies just loved that Rocky Road Slice and the fact that mum made goodies for their school.
Love the idea of the Rice Crispies in the rocky road – I’d say it flew of the shelf at the cake sale.
P.S. you secret is safe with me!!!
Thank you for all of your kind words and reassurances and thank goodness I have only told you guys and not the whole world 🙂
Lol – the list of ingredients in the box mix makes me laugh, 2 types of sugar but then they use fat reduced cocoa powder!! Crazy. Don’t beat yourself up about using a box mix, like you said it would be a waste to just throw it out and up the upside, that rocky road well and truly steals the show ;0)
Thank you Chele, you are right about the sugar and cocoa madness and I think Choclette is probably right about why it is fat reduced, but it tastes pretty poor as a result. I notice that ready made low fat food tends to contain a lot of sugar – I suppose the flavour has to come from somewhere.
I was dying to find out what your awful admission was. Goodness Kath, you didn’t buy the mix – of course you had to use it. I do find these box mixes rather a weird idea though as mixing the dry ingredients is the easy part – but hey, each to their own. I’ve noticed when reading ingredients on some processed foods that they use fat reduced cocoa powder. I can only assume it’s because cocoa butter is the expensive part and that’s sold on. Anyway, you’ve beaten me to rocky road, I still haven’t made that.
I know it wasn’t too awful was it, but I have never bought a box mix before. Like you I can’t understand the need for them, other than it may give people confidence to bake that they wouldn’t otherwise have. I think you may be right about the cocoa, I had no idea that the cocoa butter was the most expensive part though.
Your rocky road slice looks fabulous!! Really! Tasty food!
MMMMMMMM,…lovely to enjoyed with a good cup of café latte!
Thanks Sophie.
I’ll definitely be trying your rocky road slices, and I always donate stuff like boxed cookie mix that you get from various gifts etc to our local food bank. Then I can get rid of my guilt and provide for someone who really does like to make their cookies that way–cookie snob that I may be. 🙂
A local food bank sounds like a really good idea. I don’t think we have those sort of things here. I might try to find out as it would be a perfect way of making sure food doesn’t go to waste.