Rocky Road Inspired Chocolate Biscuit Slice

Ok so this is “Rocky Road Inspired” mainly because I went to go make Rocky Road, totally over-estimated the quantity of each ingredient I needed and basically just had to roll with it. Now for those who are not familiar with Rocky Road, it is slice that is also found at bakeries in every small town in New Zealand. With the CORRECT amount of everything, it is a smooth chocolate slice which had lumps of marshmallows, biscuit, nuts and glacé cherries, usually kept in a chiller cabinet. I remember many times in my childhood eating rocky road and being left with chocolatey fingers afterwards that were always then licked clean… Wow, now I understand why I was such a big child…

Now you have to move a bit fast with this slice. While the chocolate etc is melting, get all your remaining ingredients ready as the chocolate will start to set as soon as the colder dry ingredients make contact. A handy tip that I learnt from my days as a pastry chef, if you’re adding in roasted nuts to chocolate, make sure the nuts are still warm. (This also works especially well with caramel etc).

Rocky Road also does not traditionally have melted marshmallows in it. This was a happy little accident when making this. Basically the thing was a disaster. Due to the massive error in chocolate to filling ratio, the chocolate started to set before I had a chance to really do anything with it. So I chucked it back onto the double boiler to see if I could get it to melt back down a bit so I could work with it. Unfortunately, half of the marshmallows were already in the chocolate mixture, so they slowly started to melt too…

I threw in some butter and some cream to try to thin it out so it would be able to coat the rest of the dry ingredients. Apparently the screw-up Gods were watching down on me because by some miracle, it all came together and worked in my favour. The melted marshmallows mixed with the chocolate gives it a unique semi-spongey texture.

I must say, I am really happy that I can remain calm under pressure when something is not turning out right… well at least it seems that way on the outside, internally I was breaking down. It’s a skill.

I’m happy that little mishaps happen when it comes to baking as it can sometimes bring a whole new taste and texture experience to something and you always find something to learn from it. I think this may be my new go to Rocky Road Slice.. ohh might need to add Baileys next time..