A rocky (easy) road to gluttony.

Well this weekend I decided to let my sweet tooth just do its thang and I just ran with it. And it ran straight into the nearest supermarket and bought up loads of ingredients for rocky roads. Always the obliging host I cooked (sorry melted) it up and it thanked me.

These were literally the easiest things to make, and not only easy, very very very tasty! I deviated from your traditional recipe to use ingredients that I wanted inside, so here is my take on your traditional rocky road :

Ingredients : 

Marshmallows

Honeycomb pieces

Shortbread biscuits

Giant jelly beans

Fudge

Raisins

Milk chocolate buttons

I smashed / cut a few of those ingredients down so they would be a bit more meshed together within the rocky road. I then melted the chocolate. Then came the tricky bit - listen up as this can be difficult without proper instructions... I then put all the ingredients into the melted chocolate and stirred. Complicated I know.

And voila! Pour onto a baking dish lined with cooking paper, and leave to set in the fridge for an hour or so.

Mmm mmm! Don't they look good? Yep they tasted good aswell. And they look pretty impressive. Next time I have to make something to take anywhere these will be top of the list. There pretty hard to screw up as there's no real cooking involved, so be prepared to wow at a party with a quick, stress free cake!

Rocky Road I salute you! (although my hips do not)

Emily x

a tasty disaster

Too many cooks spoil the broth right. Well in this case it only needed one cook to ruin it. Myself. Jamie Oliver I am not, and attempting to make a recipe with guesstimation of ingredients does not always work. I used my 'just add extra sugar' motto as that usually tends to help. Unfortunately when the thing you are attempting to make is caramel and needs exact ingredients it doesnt always work as well!. Ah well.

I was attempting to make gluten-free, white chocolate caramel shortbread. I made gluten-free, white chocolate toffee biscuits. And when I say toffee I mean teeth breaking stuff. Also mouth scorching stuff - in my haste to try my caramel concoction I removed the top layer of skin from the roof of my mouth.

But regardless of my burnt mouth and the fear that I could crack a tooth with each hard bite they were still rather tasty.

If you wish to make your own (USE MEASUREMENTS!!) then here are the ingredients / instructions...

Shortbread : mix together till crumbly then pat into greased baking tray. Cook for 20mins on a medium heat.

250g Rice Flour

100g sugar

150g butter

Caramel :
Whilst shortbread is cooling mix together caramel over a boiling heat. About 7 minutes will do it...10 minutes will turn it too much into toffee...(!) so when it starts going darker and slightly thicker take straight off heat! Spread onto the cooled shortbread and leave to cool.

400g Condensed milk

100g butter

50g sugar

 

Chocolate topping :

Microwave / melt 300g white chocolate and spread on the top of the caramel. Leave to set. Voila!

 

Emily x

 

Christmas is coming...

REINDEER CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS
125g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs

4 spoons of cocoa powder
1 ½ cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup (185mL) milk

Put remaining Jaffa's in mixture 

ICING 

50g butter
 2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1pkt Jaffas for nose

  Smarties for eyes

Chocolate as eye dot
1 pkt pretzels

HOW TO…
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Place cupcake papers in tray. Cream butter and sugar together before adding all the other ingredients.
2. Fill cupcake papers ¾ full. Bake cupcakes for 15-25 minutes and small cupcakes (until a skewer inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean).
3. Allow to cool before icing
4. Cream butter until pale and smooth. Add the milk and half the sifted icing sugar. Beat until well combined. Add the remaining icing sugar and beat until mixture is light and fluffy. The mixture should be a spreadable paste; if it is too dry add some more milk, if too wet add more icing sugar.
5. Decorate
6. EAT AND ENJOY!!!

The sunshine and hot weather makes it easy to forget that its actually the run-up to Christmas. So nothing like a bit of baking to get you in the Christmassy spirit!
 
Slaved away over these last night...don't want to blow my own trumpet, but they are bladdy delicious! Feeling rather sick this morning however as half of the batter didn't make it into the oven, somehow ending up in my stomach instead!

Hope everyone is starting to feel festive! 

Emily x