Rocky Road

Okay so it seems kind of silly to share a recipe for Rocky Road, as it's probably the most simple thing in the world to make. You don't even have to bake anything! Just melt the chocolate and stir in whatever you fancy.

That being said, I made my youngest sister Beth some Rocky Road for her 18th birthday (don't worry, I bought her a proper present too!) and documented it, so I thought it would be fun just to share. For the record, my sister said this was the best Rocky Road she had ever had! I think she knows flattery will get her everywhere with me...



My sisters extra special birthday Rocky Road included:

Shortbread biscuits

Bourbon biscuits

Mini oreos

Marhsmallows

White chocolate buttons

Twix

Maltesers

Please note: Normally she wouldn't get anything quite as fancy, but it was her 18th so I decided to spoil her!



Chopped bourbon biscuits. I chopped the bigger biscuits (twix, bourbons, shortbread) and the marshmallows and I bashed the maltesers up a bit but I left the mini oreos whole.



Melting chocolate



Waiting to be stirred. My mouth is watering so much looking at this photo. I could just dive in!



Cooling



The finished product



All packaged up in a cute tin with birthday card and ready to go!

Now we're heading towards you-know-what, this would be a great to make for a homemade Christmas present! Put it in a Christmassy tin instead, or package a couple of pieces in a cellophane bag and tie it with a pretty ribbon to pass out to family, friends or coworkers.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

I keep seeing bloggers around the internet posting about the most delicious sounding ice cream - chocolate coconut, I think this is the actual ice cream.

Dark chocolate and coconut is one of my favourite flavour combinations and I love that this ice cream is vegan too.



Ingredients:

150g dark chocolate (I used lindt)
400ml coconut milk
50g coconut butter or creamed coconut*
1 tsp amaretto, kahlua or malibu

Method:

Melt dark chocolate and coconut butter in a bowl set over a pan of boiling water, making sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl

When the chocolate and coconut butter has melted, whisk in a can of coconut milk and a teaspoon of liquer. Kahlua, tia maria or malibu would be especially nice but I used amaretto. You can't taste the liquer, but it just helps the ice cream to not freeze into a rock hard, solid block

Add to an ice cream maker and process according to the instructions, otherwise put it in a lidded container in the freezer and stir every 15-30 minutes until it reaches ice cream consistency

It's ridiculously easy and insanely good. It's a good job I wasn't making this for a special occasion because I ate half of the tub already. I forgot to freeze the bowl of my ice cream machine so just did it in the freezer, and I'd eat a spoonful every time I went in to stir ;)

So I urge you to make this. I promise you won't regret it!

*In the past, after being unable to find it in the UK, I purchased a jar of coconut butter from the US and paid a small fortune for it. I loved it, but didn't have the spare cash to buy more. Then I discovered creamed coconut (I used Pataks brand; it cost me about £1.50 from Tesco and is basically the exact same thing!)

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookies

You might remember a recipe on the blog for easy cookies a couple of months back. I've been making these cookies since, they take about 15 minutes from start to finish and are just really delicious.

I made a chocolate version of this recipe a little while ago, and due to the fact that I didn't realise that I didn't have any eggs on hand until after I'd started, and I'd already used a sunflower spread in the cookies, these ended up being a vegan recipe and to be honest, they're even better than the original!

Ingredients:
2 tbsp vegan spread/butter
1 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp granulated sugar
3 tbsp self raising flour
3 tbsp medium oatmeal
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and grease or line a cookie baking tray.

Melt vegan spread or butter.

Combine all dry ingredients. Note: If you don't have medium oatmeal, you can either pulse some regular oats in a blender, or just use them as is.

Shape the cookies into balls (I got three out of mine) and then press down with a fork.

Bake for about 8-10 minutes, keep an eye on them as they tend to turn quite quickly

Easter Nests

This weekend has been absolutely gorgeous in terms of weather, and I've been spending a lot of time outside in the garden, planting and tending my seedlings. I'm growing a lot of fruit and veg this year, and it will be first proper year of attempting to do so, after a bit of a non starter last year!

Picking up my secateurs, I headed out towards my nectarine tree as I wanted to take some cuttings to try and see if they would root. Imagine my suprise when I got there, to find a sweet little birds nest already there, complete with three little eggs!



'Sweet' is about right as well, as these nests are made out of chocolate, and perfect for a treat over Easter!

Chocolate Nests

Ingredients:
125g Chocolate
3 Shredded wheat

Method:
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water (I found about 125g of chocolate did the big nest in the picture, and four little nests with just one egg). Crunch up shredded wheat and add to the chocolate, and stir. Add in dollops onto greaseproof paper, press a mini egg or some other candy egg (or you could make an egg out of fondant or such like!) and press into the chocolate slightly. Put into the fridge until set.