(Not quite) Thursday Feasts #2 - Swirled Rocky Road

Just imagine it's Thursday not Sunday, k? If you read my last post, I'm sure you'll understand why Thursday Feasts has taken a little while to get off the ground. But it's back and it's back for good!

Rocky road, or as it was known in our family, 'fridge cake' was one of my favourite foods growing up. I have great memories of not only making it but the delight of realising one of my parents had made it - it was the only thing my Dad ever 'baked'! I have wonderful memories of making this in a loaf tin and slicing a 'slice' off for my breakfast whilst my parents weren't looking ;) Not the healthiest start to the day but man does it hit the spot. The recipe is so simple but utterly delicious and it's such a quick make that you don't really have an excuse not to.

I pulled the base recipe for this from the BBC food website, but adapted it a little for myself. It also takes inspiration from a rocky road sold in my uni town by a local cafe. 

Swirled Rocky Road

Ingredients:

• 100g/4½oz soft unsalted butter
  
• 300g/10½oz best-quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces
  
• 3 tbsp golden syrup
  
• 150g/7¼oz chocolate digestive biscuits (roughly crushed)
  
• 100g malteasers (roughly crushed)
  
• 50g glace cherries (roughly chopped)
  
• 75g mini marshmallows
  
• 3 tbsp peanut butter if desired

Method:

1. Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in either a glass bowl over a saucepan of hot water on the stove or in the microwave (if microwaving, stir the syrup in once the butter and chocolate have melted and make sure you heat it in 30 seconds bursts, stirring in between to ensure it doesn't burn).
   
2. Stir in the roughly crushed digestives, malteasers and cherries until all are coated. If you're adding peanut butter, stir 1 of the tablespoons in now. The mixture should be rough but still quite fluid. If you have just coated the biscuits and cherries with little chocolate/butter/syrup left, you'll need to add more.
   
3. **Optional** If you add the marshmallows in when the mixture is still hot from being melted, they too will melt and dissolve into your rocky road. Either chill in the fridge for ten minutes or leave the mixture for half an hour to cool if you want to make sure that your marshmallows remain whole. If you don't have time, then only stir a small amount of them into the mix and put the rest aside.
   
4. Line a square dish with tin foil as smoothly as possible. Pour the mixture into the tin. Using a teaspoon, swirl the remaining peanut butter through the top layer of the mix. It should create a lovely yellow marbling pattern. Push the remaining marshmallows into the top and refrigerate until solid. Serve by cutting it into chunks with a big knife.

The wonderful thing about this is that you can really go wild with your imagination and put whatever you want in it, as long as it's crunchy and you like the taste! If you don't like malteasers, then why not try M+Ms or fudge pieces? If you are allergic to peanut butter, why not try swirling caramel across the top or even a green coloured peppermint sauce? Your imagination and tastes are the limit here. 

One of the best versions of this I tasted had white chocolate malteasers, digestives and mars bar chunks in... Just throwing that out there.

Thursday Feasts #1 - M+M cookies

Welcome to one of my new features! Every Thursday I will be showing you guys something I've cooked or baked in the last week. And to start, we have these wonderful cookies that I made these for my boyfriend to take into work with him and I have to say, they are the best cookies I've ever made! They're really chewy and as you can see, kept their shape fantastically.

Om nom nom. I made a batch of 16 and there are only 5 left... The recipe is very simple. And here it is...

Adapted from All Recipes

Best M+M cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups plain flour
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of baking powder
• 3/4 cups of melted butter or margarine
• 3/4 cups of golden caster sugar  (I took out the brown sugar from the original recipe as I don't like the strong taste of it. If you don't mind, then sub it back in.)
• 1/2 cup of white caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (Alternatively, if you have it, you can use vanilla flavoured caster sugar and skip this)
• 1 whole egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 3/4s of a sharing bag of M+Ms = reduce if you want more cookie to M+M ratio!*

Method:

Oven temp: 160 degrees C 

1. Combine the dry ingredients into one bowl and set aside. Melt the butter. Combine sugars in a big bowl.
2. Pour the melted butter over the sugars and mix until it seems to be fully combined/not very grainy.
3. Add in the whole egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract if you're using it and combine again until light and creamy.
4. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir/fold until just combined. Add in your M+Ms and mix again.
5. Grab a baking tray and portion out cookie dough onto the sheet (no need to grease) roughly 3 inches apart. Put the tray in the freezer for five minutes.
6. Take the tray out of the freezer and bake for 6 minutes to 10 minutes. They're done when they start to go golden brown around the outside. When you take them out, leave them on the oven tray for fifteen minutes before removing them to cool.

*I used a whole bag of M+Ms and there really were too many. I also recommend roughly bashing half the M+Ms so that you get a nice difference in texture and more colour 'oomph'.

Now, number 5 is an odd instruction but it makes a lot of sense; cookies rely on the butter and binding ingredients in them being cold to keep their shape. If you've ever made cookies before you'll know that warm cookies spread incredibly quickly and lose their shape rapidly - they go thin and greasy. This stops this totally! You don't want to freeze them completely, just make sure that they're cold to the touch. When they go into the oven cold they cook through fast and don't have the temperature needed to 'dissolve' onto the tray.

You really can't beat one of these with a cup of steaming hot fresh tea. If you leave them on the saucer they warm up and go all gooey again!

Tea and a biscuit, that Great British institution!