Rocky Road Crunch Bars

One of the things that pains me the most about the rise in food prices in recent years is the dramatic increase in the price of chocolate. Dark chocolate appears in so many of my favourite recipes but where a couple of years ago 100g of decent 70% dark chocolate cost about a pound, these days you'll easily pay about 50% more than that and even more if you want organic.

So, when I use it I want to really make it count and this is a recipe that really makes you feel like you've got your money's worth. If you search for Rocky Road online you'll find a variety of different recipes and ultimately you can add pretty much anything you like - digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, marshmallows and any sort of dried fruit that takes your fancy.

This time I've used Nigella's recipe from her book, Nigella Express, which is one my favourite of her books and contains lots of quick and easy recipes that I've used time and time again.

This is one of the simplest recipes for Rocky Road as it just contains crushed Rich Tea biscuits and marshmallows. Next time I might try adding a handful of raisins to the mix aswell. As this only uses dark chocolate it might not appeal to some children (mine weren't overly keen) so if you want to make a more family friendly version you might want to replace some or all of the dark chocolate with milk. Most adults, though, will love the dark, rich combination of crunchy biscuit and squishy marshmallow. I certainly do and I'm just wondering if I can justify having another piece already.

On a final note, the tin I used was a bit bigger than the one specified so I struggled to cover the whole of the top with the reserved chocolate. When I make it again I think I'll size down, tin-wise, rather than up.

You can find the recipe on Nigella's website here.